Reformatted for consistency and removed some copy and paste duplicate text.
NO Government Arms Control is Legal or Constitutional; It Should Be Repealed Entirely
The government’s promotion of “Reasonable Restraint” is misguided. Supporters of the Bill of Rights argue that it protects constitutional rights, while opponents claim that the government has the power to impose restraints on those rights. However, this argument stems from a misunderstanding of the Bill of Rights’ intent.
When the Bill of Rights was presented for ratification, it came with a preamble known as the “brown letter.” This preamble stated that the Amendments were meant to prevent the government from misusing its powers and recommended the inclusion of “further declaratory and restrictive clauses.” Thus, the Amendments did not create constitutional rights or grant the government power over individual rights; they simply added additional restraints and qualifications on the government’s powers regarding the enumerated unalienable rights.
By perpetuating the misconception that the Amendments grant individual rights, the government has unlawfully transformed these enumerated restraints and qualifications into legislative, executive, judicial, and administrative power over individual rights. The government asserts that it has the constitutional authority to determine the extent of individual rights listed in the Amendments and impose “reasonable restraints” on them. This assertion is absurd. The government lacks the constitutional authority to ignore, modify, invalidate, or eliminate constitutional restraints imposed by the Amendments. Nor can it convert these restraints into power over the individual rights enumerated within them.
A denial of power or an enumerated restraint on the exercise of power cannot be interpreted or modified by the entity to which the restraint is imposed. The restraints imposed by the Amendments, enacted four years after the ratification of the Constitution, supersede the legislative, executive, judicial, or administrative powers of the government. Otherwise, these restraints would be meaningless, as the government could easily bypass, modify, or abolish them. Why would the States have requested and adopted enumerated restraints on government power if the government possessed the authority to nullify them?
When the government infringes upon one of the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights, it does not violate anyone’s constitutional rights. Instead, it violates the additional restraint or qualification placed on its power by the specific Amendment where the right is enumerated. This distinction between rights and restraints is crucial.
As declared in the Declaration of Independence, the American people possess unalienable rights that originate from a higher source than government or a written document. By acknowledging that these natural rights are bestowed by a creator, the Founders established the principle that the government lacks the lawful authority to infringe upon or take away these rights. This principle was incorporated into the preamble and structure of the Amendments, which were designed to safeguard individual rights from encroachment by the government. Consequently, the Amendments were implemented as restraints on the exercise of power.
If the individual rights of the people had been created by the Constitution or an amendment to it, they would cease to be unalienable, as their existence would depend solely on a document. If the document or any of its provisions were to disappear, so too would these rights. The belief that individual rights originate from a written document has allowed the government to claim the power to define the extent of any right enumerated in an Amendment. Consequently, constitutional restraints that were intended to limit governmental power have been transformed into subjective determinations of individual rights by governmental institutions. Due to a failure to comprehend the distinction between amendments that create rights and those that impose restraints on the government, the American people are witnessing the erosion of their individual rights, reducing them to mere privileges bestowed by the government. This erosion occurs as constitutional restraints on governmental power are supplanted by government decrees.
Opponents of the Amendments often seek to diminish the rights enumerated within them by arguing that rights are not absolute. However, this is a fallacious argument, as the purpose of the Amendment is to impose restraints on the government’s powers concerning a right, rather than granting or defining the extent of that right. Furthermore, a careful examination of the Second Amendment reveals that the restraint it imposes contains no exceptions.
Legal Precedents Affirming the Constitutionality of the Bill of Rights:
- Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137: States that the Constitution is the supreme law, rendering any law repugnant to it null and void.
- Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105: Asserts that a state cannot convert a liberty into a privilege and impose a fee on it.
- Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, 373 U.S. 262: States that if a state converts a liberty into a privilege, citizens can exercise that right without consequence.
- Owen v. Independence, 100 S.C.T. 1398, 445 U.S. 622: Holds that officers of the court, when violating a Constitutional right, have no immunity from liability as they are expected to know the law.
- Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232 (1974): Expounds upon Owen v. Byers, reinforcing that unlawful search and seizure rights must be interpreted in favor of the citizen.
- Boyd v. U.S., 116 U.S. 616: “The court is to protect against any encroachment of Constitutionally secured liberties.”
- Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436: “Where rights secured by the Constitution are involved, there can be no rule making or legislation which would abrogate them.”
- Norton v. Shelby County, 118 U.S. 425: “An unconstitutional act is not law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; affords no protection; it creates no office; it is in legal contemplation, as inoperative as though it had never been passed.”
- Miller v. U.S., 230 F.2d. 486, 489: “The claim and exercise of a Constitutional right cannot be converted into a crime.”
- Brady v. U.S., 397 U.S. 742, 748: Discusses the necessity of knowing and intelligent acts for waivers of Constitutional rights, quoting Samuel Adams on the inalienability of rights.
- Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. (6 Wheat) 264, 404, 5 L.Ed 257 (1821): “When a judge acts where he or she does not have jurisdiction to act, the judge is engaged in an act or acts of treason.”
- Mattox v. U.S., 156 U.S. 237, 243: “We are bound to interpret the Constitution in the light of the law as it existed at the time it was adopted.”
- South Carolina v. U.S., 199 U.S. 437, 448 (1905): “The Constitution is a written instrument. As such, its meaning does not alter. That which it meant when it was adopted, it means now.”
- Supreme Court rulings have affirmed the Incorporation of the Bill of Rights to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Agree
- Disagree