There is only one thing the ATF is authorized to do under the Constitution.

Disband!

This may sound like hyperbole, but when you understand the following eight essential principles behind the Second Amendment, it should become completely clear.

First, the right to keep and bear arms is a natural right. In View of the Constitution of the United States, St George Tucker wrote, “The Right to Self Defense is the first law of nature,” and he called it “the true palladium of liberty.”

In other words, you have the right to defend yourself simply because you exist.

Samuel Adams made a similar assertion decades earlier, saying “Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First, a right to life; secondly to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can.”

It follows from this that the Second Amendment isn’t your “gun permit.” You don’t need government permission to exercise a natural right. In effect, you are your own gun permit.

This leads to a third key point: every federal gun law is unconstitutional. 

All of them, past, present, and future – without exception.

Theophilus Parsons said, “No power was given to Congress to infringe on any one of the natural rights of the people.” [Emphasis added]

The Second Amendment was intended to clarify this point, explicitly stating that the right to keep and bear arms “shall not be infringed.”

Even though the Second Amendment was only intended to restrict the actions of the federal government, state and local restrictions on firearms also violate your individual, natural rights. As Mercy Otis Warren put it, “Self-defense is a primary law of nature, which no subsequent law of society can abolish.” [Emphasis added]

James Wilson echoed the same idea, writing, “The defense of oneself, justly called the primary law of nature, is not, nor can it be abrogated by any regulation of municipal law.” [Emphasis added]

So why do we even have a Second Amendment?

The founders cited four primary reasons.

• It helps promote the individual, natural right of self-defense. 
• It guarantees the states a militia power of their own to balance the military power of the federal government. – in other words, it prevents the need for large, permanent standing armies
•  It was adopted to support the people defending against foreign invasion.
•  Defense against domestic tyrants.

This raises the sixth key point. To fulfill the purposes of the Second Amendment, the people need to have the weapons necessary to get the job done. In other words, it’s not just about “muskets.” To render a standing army unnecessary, the people have to have military arms.

Tench Coxe pointed out that the people have the right to every type of weapon common to a soldier.

“Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American.” [Emphasis added]

Coxe’s view should come as no surprise. The Revolutionary War had ended only five years earlier. If the colonists had not possessed military-style weapons, they would have lost the war.

James Madison alluded to this in Federalist #46, as he pointed out that a well-armed citizenry can protect themselves against an overreaching government. 

“It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms, will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it.”

More generally, the seventh key point is that the founders viewed disarming the people as tyranny. 

During the Virginia ratifying convention, George Mason gave a history lesson, reminding the delegates that “an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania” advised Parliament “to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them.”

Mason continued, nothing that “they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia.”

Noah Webster expressed a similar view, writing, “Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed.”

Standing armies were anathema to the founding generation, and many Second Amendment supporters miss the point that a well-armed populace mitigates the need for one.

St. George Tucker made this connection clear.

“Wherever standing armies are kept up, and when the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.”

Finally, we will never protect our right to self-defense and to keep and bear arms by getting on our knees and begging the government to stop violating it. As Thomas Jefferson put it, “A free people claim their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as a gift of their chief magistrate.”

During the North Carolina ratifying convention, James Iredell who was one of the first Supreme Court justices said, “The only resource against usurpation is the inherent right of the people to prevent its exercise.”

Roger Sherman made a similar point during a debate in the House of Representatives. 

“It is the privilege of every citizen, and one of his most essential rights, to bear arms, and to resist every attack upon his liberty or property, by whomsoever made.”

Putting these eight points together, it all boils down to this: The only way to protect your rights is to exercise them whether the government wants you to, or not. 

Before you go, a quick bonus point. 

As Thomas Jefferson advised his 15 year old nephew Peter Carr, it’s essential for young people to be well-armed and trained too. He wrote, “As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun.”

“While this gives a moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body, and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion on your walks.”

Tags: 2nd-amendment, Founding Principles, Natural Rights, Right to Keep and Bear Arms

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