Speaking at a recent rally in Michigan, Democratic Senate candidate Abdul el Sayed delivered a snarky and ignorant remark about the Second Amendment: “When they promised the right to bear arms, they had muskets. So yeah, everyone should have equal rights to a musket.”
The Second Amendment doesn’t guarantee the right of individuals to keep and bear “muskets” or “Kentucky rifles” or “cannons” any more than the First Amendment guarantees the right of individuals to “write with quills” or worship “in Anglican and Presbyterian churches.” The right to self-defense isn’t predicated on technology but on belief.
Surely el Sayed is aware that the internet and television didn’t exist in the late 18th century? Does that mean he believes the founders intended to protect speech that was found only on parchment paper and in pamphlets?
More than that, think of the hubris it takes to believe that the founders — men who lived through advances in steam power, electricity, the cotton gin, textile, printing, among numerous other breakthroughs — were so unsophisticated that they hadn’t envisioned the new nation would see technological developments as it aged.
(Washington Examiner illustration; AP Photo)
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(Washington Examiner illustration; AP Photo)
Not only did the founders understand that there would be advances in gun making, they witnessed and championed them. George Washington was alive for the proliferation of the long-range Pennsylvania rifles, ones that could fire at 300 yards with decent precision, much in contrast to the musket, which could fire 50 yards with none. Most founders were also likely acquainted with the existence of weapons such as air-powered repeating rifles that could fire .46-caliber lead balls about 40 times before losing muzzle velocity.
Subsequent generations of Americans never argued that the right to own a gun should be limited to a musket, even though they lived through the rise of the revolver, the repeating rifle, the Gatling gun, recoil weapons, and gas-powered automatic weapons.
The founders believed that citizens should be able to own cannons. Surely, they would be fine with an American owning a semi-automatic rifle. Yet, progressives feign obtuseness about the entire reason the Second Amendment exists. “What if we tweaked the Constitution, amended the amendment, and instead of the right to bear arms, we changed it to the right to have healthcare?” El Sayed proposed in a YouTube video a couple of years back.
It’s interesting, if unsurprising, that el Sayed believes stripping an amendment from the Bill of Rights, one that has stood for nearly 250 years, is merely a “tweak.” Worse, it shows he doesn’t really understand the founders’ notion of inherent right.
Voters can overturn the Second Amendment. There is a process in place to do it. One suspects most Democrats would be happy to see it go. Even if they did, it would extinguish the inherent right to defend oneself. On the other hand, voters could mandate universal government-provided healthcare coverage. But it will never be a “right.” Compelling others to provide a service or a good, like healthcare, can be moral and maybe necessary, but it’s an entitlement. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to bear arms aren’t given by the state; they can only be taken by it.
El Sayed is not the only progressive who doesn’t understand how rights work. “I don’t see a good reason for assault weapons,” Maine’s hard-left Democratic Senate candidate Troy Jackson recently said. “You can’t use them for hunting or anything like that.”
Well, for one thing, people use AR-15s for hunting all the time. The first ads for civilian Colt AR-15s in the 1960s sold the gun as a hunting rifle. Our long tradition of hunting, first as a necessity and then as sport, had a big part in creating the unique gun culture that evolved in the United States. Still, it has very little to do with the existence of the Second Amendment.
The founding generation believed that a citizen had the right to arm themselves to protect their life and property, as well as their inalienable liberties, from those who would try to take them. And that, however jarring it may sound to modern sensibilities, includes the government. Hunting barely ever came up.
But there is a better way to understand what the founders meant.
Last week, authorities said a 16-year-old gunman in Oregon killed three children and a teacher at an elementary school in Bend. The rampage would have almost surely resulted in many more deaths if Kaylub Giamanco, a 36-year-old carpenter and father of two daughters in the school, had been expected to load a musket before acting. Indeed, if el Sayed and Jackson had their way, the man who stopped the killer wouldn’t have had any gun at all.
The killer, of course, broke a slew of existing laws to get his hands on a shotgun. Killers always do.
BYSTANDER ‘HEROICALLY’ STOPS OREGON SCHOOL SHOOTER AFTER FOUR KILLED: WHAT TO KNOW
The state of Oregon has about every gun law that Democrats want to pass nationally on the books. There are universal background checks. Permit holders have to take safety training courses before carrying a concealed pistol in public. The state has a ban on the sale, transfer, or import of magazines holding more than 10 rounds. Gun owners have to securely store firearms. Red-flag laws allow authorities to restrict access to weapons if a court believes a person poses a risk. Ghost guns and rapid-fire devices are banned. The state, of course, has age limitations on gun ownership.
There are also a bunch of restrictions on where a person can carry firearms in Oregon, including schools. Thankfully, Giamanco broke a law restricting him from carrying a firearm into the school when he shot the assailant. Are authorities going to charge him? One hopes not. Because when it matters, everyone understands: Defense is a right that trumps any man-made laws.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
