It has been brought to my attention that our rights have been tampered with a lot longer than we thought.  I can’t help but wonder why nothing has been done about it long before now.       

      The “Bill of Rights” that is part of the “Constitution” of the United States was a set of conditions set down by the people that founded this country who recognized that Government is a predatory entity.  Any Government including this one is an entity that is power hungry and will seek every opportunity to extend it’s reach and control over it’s subjects every chance it gets.  Government in this country anyway, is supposed to be responsible to the people.  With recognition that the people of this country are citizens, not subjects.      

      The people, who founded this country and recognizing this fallacy in Government, demanded that these “Rights” be written down and included in the “Constitution” before it would even be considered.  Realizing that, in a majority rule society, the majority could get just about anything it wanted.  The “Bill of Rights” was included to protect the individual from the majority, including Government, to keep the minority, individual in particular, from becoming oppressed and servant (slave) to the majority or a power hungry Government.     

     One thing that I discovered this past week is that an Amendment to the “Bill of Rights”, “Amendment XIV, has some exceptions in it.  These exceptions, which are interpretations by the Supreme Court, violate three of the first 8 Amendments of the “Bill of Rights”.       

     “Amendment XIV” was added to the “Bill of Rights” in, I believe, 1868.   

     The fourteenth Amendment prohibits the states from abridging “the rights and immunities” of any citizen without due process of law. See U.S. Const. amend. XIV. The “due process” clause of the 14th Amendment has been interpreted by the Supreme Court as affording citizens protection from interference by the state with almost all of the rights listed in the first eight amendments. The exceptions are the right to bear arms in the second Amendment, the 5th Amendment guarantee of a grand jury in criminal prosecutions, and the right to a jury for a civil trial under the seventh Amendment.  

      From one thing I keep seeing and hearing about American History, I’m inclined to think these exceptions extend back to that period.  I’m inclined to believe this because I can’t help but wonder how else our famous and hero lawmen of the Old West, like Wyatt Erpp and other were able to ban the wearing of guns in the statutory limits of whatever city or town they enforced the law in.     

       Yes, that’s right, one of the exceptions is that Federal, State and local Governments have the authority to decide who, when and where an individual can or cannot have a firearm or other item considered a weapon in or on their possession.       

      This puts the descent individual citizen at the mercy of the criminal that decides they want to take something or do harm to that individual.  It also is a potential help to increase the number of bad cops that think they have the right to do whatever they want without repercussion.  In other words, the ones that use their badge as a license to do as they will.       

      These kinds of exceptions don’t reduce crime; they aid it.  It doesn’t stop the criminal from obtaining a weapon and using it, nor does it stop the bad cop from abusing their authority.  Criminals know that they are not going to have a hard time because their victim has no means to defend their self or what they have is locked up so tight that they can get in, do what they came to do and leave before the victim can even get their weapon unlocked to use against them.  And, bad cops don’t have to worry about walking up and pulling someone out of their vehicle to beat them up or busting someone’s door down just because someone else said they might have drugs or something else in their home only to find out it was an elderly couple that the person they got the information from didn’t like.      

     If the right to bear arms as written in the 2^nd Amendment to the Constitution had not been violated, criminals and bad cops alike would be forced to think twice before taking action against a descent citizen.  My personal opinion is “give us back our right to carry defensive weapons at all times”.  However, the more important complaint should be “Government, get your nose out of our “Constitution” and our “Bill of Rights””.  Don’t take any more away and return what you’ve already deceitfully taken away.  Stop playing the Devils advocate even though you like it so much because the shoes fit you too well.     

     These rights are not an order that everyone has to own a weapon.  It is your right as a citizen to never even look at one if that is the way you feel.  It simply guarantees that every citizen has the right to have as many weapons of what- ever nature they may be if that is their choice.  And, no majority vote nor Government or police has the right to enact or enforce a law to the contrary.                                                                                                            

                                                                                                                                      Harry

PS:  I can’t help but wonder, if the descent citizens had been allowed to carry their weapons

        on the airplanes.  Would those terrorists have made it to the Twin Towers and the Pentagon?