What Part of “Infringe” Don’t You Understand?

The recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, in striking down the Washington D.C. total gun ban, unfortunately left the window open for President Obama to declare that he supports what he calls “common sense” gun laws. My question is – Will common sense be applied to determine if any of the proposed gun laws are actually constitutional?

The second amendment to the U.S. Constitution declares that the right of the people to keep and bare arms shall not be infringed. The dictionary defines “to infringe” as “to act in violation of, or to transgress”. Assuming that “arms” mean fire arms, that is, guns not too large for one man to carry, I arrive at the common sense conclusion that most (maybe all) of the current gun laws are unconstitutional, let alone the ones being proposed.

And what is being proposed? The proposal that frightens me the most is called “national gun registration”. This may seem harmless at first, but in fact is very dangerous, because registration is a logical precondition to confiscation. (And confiscation is a logical precondition to genocide, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.)

Gun registration is unconstitutional for the same reason that concealed carry permits are unconstitutional. These laws convert a right into a privilege, to be granted or denied at the whim of the state.

The constitution does not say that the privilege of the people to keep and bare arms shall be regulated for the purpose of public safety. Gun control advocates and Supreme Court justices should stop pretending that it does.

And what kind of society would we have if we declared all of our gun laws unconstitutional. I think we would have a safer society, from criminals as well as from government tyranny. It works for Switzerland.