As the noose is being tightened around our right to keep and bear arms, it’s time to have a better understanding of how government converts unalienable rights to mere privileges.
I personally have a problem with saying someone can “legally” carry a gun, whether carrying concealed or open. Here’s why: If we must seek to legally carry, then it’s not an unalienable right truly protected by the 2nd amendment. It’s a mere government granted privilege. We need to start taking back the nomenclature of our liberty. The proper term is to lawfully carry.
Legality is a human construct, it’s derived from the terms of civil contracts, statutes and regulations as well as by activist courts. Lawfully doing a thing under the terms of natural law, is to do something purely as a matter of right, so long as you are not infringing the rights or property of another. If I have a natural right to self defense by whatever weaponry I choose, especially a gun, then I do. Period. Non-negotiable.
I have the right to have the protection of a gun with me wherever I travel as well as at home. I may be subject to rules of private property owners as to whether I can enter their private property with a weapon, but that is a personal matter, not one of public policy. There may also be considerations of public harm such as carrying your gun onto an aircraft, where discharge could be fatal to others if not all aboard as an unintended consequence. In such a case, you check the weapon at the gate for the good of all or be denied the ability to travel by air. Common sense that does not require government licensing or permit.
I do not have the right to commit murder with any weapon; I do not have the right to use a weapon to take, by the threat of grave harm or death, the property or security of a fellow human being; I do not have the right to terrorize anyone with a weapon. For those crimes against society, permit or no, you can and should be prosecuted.
Conceal and carry laws are the attempt of government to make your “rights” subservient to government approval and whatever agenda is being pushed. It isn’t the function of our governments to educate us on the proper use of a firearm, unless we enter the military or as civilians into law-enforcement programs, and it isn’t necessary for the government to tell adults they need such training. It is common sense to avail ourselves of proper use and care. I was taught how to use a firearm in Boy Scouts and by family as we went hunting. I was taught at home and via public service announcements from local police forces. Of course we’re talking more than 50 years ago.
Similarly, I was taught how to cross a street, when I was 5 years old and walked three blocks to school. I was taught you never cross against a red light. You always stop, look and listen before entering a cross walk, you never j-walk and so on and so forth. And I was taught at a very young age that, even with toy guns, you never point a gun at another human being or animal unless you intend to kill and you never attempt to kill a human being unless it is in self defense and the situation is kill or be killed.
My point is this, converting the unalienable right to keep and bear arms from right to legally bestowed privilege, has done nothing to prevent gun crime and lots to enable it because the process for obtaining purchase permits and conceal/carry permits (licensing) has a chilling effect on people exercising a right they already possess. Criminals don’t need no stinking permits, and requiring them of us does nothing to stem the tide of gun crime…
Once you accept the premise that government can take an unalienable right, and license it (permit) thus converting it to a government granted privilege — “legal” right — you must also accept that government can take that which it grants away by the same legal means. By hook or crook… Just sayin’
Categories: Political
Pesky Truth 
Very well said and I agree 100 percent. Buck used to say all the time that any law, rule or regulation subsequent to the 2A was an infringement on our right, and I’d agree with that too. Our founders were stating that we already had the right and the 2A protected that from the government, but over the years it’s morphed into the abomination of government controlling regulations and laws.
It’s a lot like the 1A in that we have to take the bad free speech with the good – the bad guys and nut jobs have just as much right to own guns and do the good guys. While we may not like that idea, we shouldn’t take that right away from them because it wasn’t ours to give or take. But just try telling that to Dianne the Dip or Hillary the Horrible.
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What they have done is allow us the right to keep — sort of — but deny us the right to bear our arms with the requirement that we seek their permission via conceal carry permits. As to the former, they have infringed steadily on the “keep” part of the 2nd Amendment with such legal requirements as background checks, purchase permits and so on. It’s ALL wrong and all of it infringes the unalienable right.
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