Judging from the feedback on my column from

last week, in the process of commenting on the Second Amendment, I

apparently said and indicated many things. This column

is to clarify my position on the issues of gun control, political

participation, the Second Amendment and the relationship between

the Bill of Rights and Constitution in general. 

My analysis of the clauses of the Second

Amendment may be wrong, and I may disagree with various Supreme

Court decisions — especially recent ones — but it is not my belief,

nor did I ever mean to indicate, that the U.S. Constitution grants

the government to illegalize the ownership of firearms. I did not

attempt to “scuttle” the Second Amendment and explain how there is

no freedom granted in it; the idea was to define its legitimate

uses. 

I think gun control is a bad idea. I think it

is bad policy to disarm law-abiding citizens and not allow them an

opportunity to defend themselves against criminal

attackers. Actions can only

be effectively opposed by actions. The police cannot

be everywhere, nor would we want them to be

everywhere, watching our every move. The United States

is not, nor ever was, a police state. At the time of

the American Revolution, that was one of the British liberties we

prized. In contradistinction to states such as France, Spain and

Russia, the British empire was not a police

state. 

It is citizens, individuals, must be the first

defenders of their lives and property against

criminals. They are there,

on the scene, and actually have a vested, personal

interest in making sure the crime about to happen does not go

forward. Restrictions on who can purchase firearms,

such as minors and persons with certain health issues, and their

ownership, should probably require classes on how to use them

properly and how to safely store them. But the right

to possess a firearm should not be completely removed, nor made so

difficult as to be nonexistent. 

And when I say that the right to bear arms is

a collective right, I do not mean something socialist, communist,

fascist or totalitarian. 

To state the fact that “well-regulated” meant

“well-trained” simply proves my own point. Training is

not achieved by one’s own initiative; not uniform training, anyway,

of the kind necessary for any military body to be

effective. No, that training must come from

government. 

However, politics should not be done with

guns. And that was the whole point of last week’s

column. Force should never

be used, by left or right, to accomplish political

aims. Whether that force be

done by rioting groups or crazed individuals, it has no place in a

reasonable discourse concerning matters to be decided upon by our

political institutions; by our representative

bodies. 

Political participation at even the most local

levels of government was widespread in British America before the

Revolution. The

Constitution of 1787 created yet another level of government in

which people could participate. The Constitution, in

fact, assumes that American citizens will be active in their

governments. In order for it to work, Americans must

vote regularly in the election of their

representatives. 

They must, in fact, do more than

that. They must discuss the issues among themselves

and inform themselves on those subjects that are matters of public

concern. 

The right “to alter or to abolish” oppressive

governments is indeed affirmed in the Declaration of

Independence. But nowhere

does that document state that forceful action is acceptable in

political matters. In fact, the document complains of the removal

of Americans from political decision making by the British

government. 

It is because the British were making laws for

us — without us, not including us in a political process in which

we were interested — that we declared our independence, not mere

discontentedness at the substance of those laws. 

And the Constitution that resulted from that

revolution is not a social contract. Before the Bill of Rights was

added to it, it created a set of institutions through which we

agreed, as citizens, to solve our problems. There is no need to

protect the right “to alter or to abolish” our government, because

the citizens of America are the government. If people

would participate in the institutions which the Constitution — both

of the U.S. and the state governments — their freedoms would not be

in jeopardy. Corrupt representatives are the effect,

not the cause, of a corrupt people. 

It is for this reason that a Bill of Rights

was opposed and cautioned against by the author of “The Federalist

Papers” and other writers who commented on the Constitution during

the debates on its ratification. A Bill of Rights,

making the government into a social contract, would outsource the

protection of rights to a piece of paper, not effective, positive

action by real people. 

Such agreements are the enumeration of

“certain immunities and modes of proceeding, which are relative to

personal and private concerns, according to Federalist No.

84.  In other words,

they are made with respect to private affairs, not public matters,

and are not the substance of political unions. 

Hamilton viewed a Bill of Rights as

unnecessary and, in fact, irrelevant because of the system

established by the Constitution. He wrote in

Federalist No. 84, “It is evident, therefore, that, according to

their primitive signification, they have no application to

constitutions, professedly founded upon the power of the people and

executed by their immediate representatives and

servants. Here, in

strictness, the people surrender nothing; and as they retain

everything they have no need of particular reservations.” 

In other words, inclusion of a Bill of Rights

was a poor idea because no power to take away the rights enumerated

there existed in the Constitution itself.  Hamilton’s

view rests on the understanding that the Constitution is one which

establishes a state where citizens will participate in the

government of their country and assume an active public role for

themselves. 

A Bill of Rights, therefore, is exactly the

opposite of the kind of Constitution established in 1787. The

Constitution, Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 84, “is

merely intended to regulate the general political interests of the

nation,” and is not concerned with “the regulation of every species

of personal and private concerns.” 

The Constitution of 1787, in its own right,

accomplishes one of the goals of a Bill of Rights: that is,

according to Federalist

No. 84, “to declare and specify the political privileges of

the citizens in the structure and administration of the

government.” 

It is ultimately up to citizens, not solemn

words on paper, to safeguard freedom. The fact that a person

believes the Second Amendment provides no security for your “right”

to use force in exercising your political liberties does not mean

that he believes the government can take your guns or keep you from

lawfully exercising your right of self-defense.