Thursday, October 6, 2016

The Second Amendment

Much effort of argumentation has been expended by countless souls regarding the meaning of the Second Amendment (2A) to the Constitution of the United States of America.  Virtually all of the debate to which I have devoted my attentions focuses upon the precise semantics of the Amendment.  While the meaning of the 2A is in point of fact crystalline in its clarity, those of an ignorant bent regarding English grammar or of a less than honest agenda claim otherwise, giving all manner of ridiculous misinterpretations.

It is not my objective here to address the 2A on that basis as it has all been said and done before, the truth being what it is, as well as the same for the lies and misinformation.

My goal here is to address the 2A from the standpoint of reason in the form of a logical proof demonstrating the Amendment's actual nature, thereby setting to final rest the controversy by revealing through a different channel the proper meaning of it.

Let us begin by quoting the Amendment, that we may have at hand that which was committed to paper:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Allow me to begin by clarifying a point of error held closely by a vast plurality of people regarding the precise function of the 2A, wherein they mistakenly believe that it gives people the right to keep and bear arms.

The Second Amendment gives nothing in terms of the right in question.  This is one of the most profoundly flawed, yet common beliefs about it: that it grants men the right to keep and bear arms, which would imply that the right is contractual in nature, which is to say a humanly-contrived artifact rather than a fundamental component of each man's claim to life.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

The 2A does nothing more or less than recognize the preexistant natural and inherent right of a man to keep and bear arms for all morally just reasons, and guarantee each man protection from violation, dimishment, disparagement, alteration, or other derogation of that most basic of claims.

It is every man's right to defend life, limb, and other property from harm and destruction.  This is a postulative assertion, the nature of which is self-evident such that no further proof is required, even though such is indeed available and readily demonstrated with relative ease by any man of normal intelligence and the will to seek it.

A right, which is a claim, directly and perforce implies the right and the authority to exercise.  This in turn inexorably implies the right to the means of exercise.

A basic right does not effectively (practically) exist in point of material fact where the concomitant right (ability) to exercise is denied.  The right to exercise may itself become materially nonexistent without the means of protecting it, as in the case of the tyrant's suppression of such means, thereby leaving him free to suppress exercise.  This in turn effectively and materially extinguishes practical evidence of the endemic right, rendering it for all practical purposes nonexistent.

In other words, a theoretical right no matter how evidently extant, obviously proper, and just in the vapors of the mind, has no effective meaning in the real world without the ability of the claimant to exercise it.

Therefore, if a man does in fact hold the moral right to defend life, limb, and other property, it follows axiomatically that he holds the materially effective right to exercise his prerogatives pursuant to the claim.  Successively, it must therefore hold that if I am to exercise the right to defend life and limb, I must be free to acquire the instruments of exercise, such as they may be, in accord with my morally just means of doing so.

In point of practical example, if a firearm is for sale for five dollars and I happen to have that sum in my possession of which I am free to spend as I choose, I am therefore at my liberty to purchase the weapon without interference from any third parties.  To further clarify, the right in question does not imply that I am entitled to have a firearm provided to me by some third-party provisioner at the expense of others, particularly those who make such provisions only under threats of violence and other coercions.

The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America is in fact the explicit guarantee to each man that he shall remain sacrosanct and unimpeded in his acquisition, carriage, and employment of the means of exercising his right to defend life, limb, and other property.

Because of its obvious relationship to the postulate that states that all men hold the right to defend life, limb, and other property against from damage, destruction, and theft, it is apodictically evident that the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America protects the right of each man to keep and bear from violation, diminution, reprobation, alteration, or other insult whatsoever.

You, as a natural born man whose claim to life itself is equal to that of all other men, taken singly or severally.  That claim, being equal, it follows that no man may make a claim upon your life, whether in whole in it its minutiae, without your consent.  That being the case, pursuant to your right to life and all its trappings and implications, you are thereby entitled to defend that claim from theft and destruction, which finally brings you to rest at the right to the means of defense, which is what the 2A is all about.

This is all the proof one should ever need to convince an opponent who is honest, of integrity, and of nominal intelligence capable of grasping the chain of reason.

Until next time, please accept my best wishes.