John Stossel has a piece today about the recent U.S. Supreme Courts ruling in District of Columbia vs. Heller. Stossel points out that many have forgotten, or perhaps never knew, that the Bill of Rights doesn’t give us our rights, it acknowledges them.

The Bill of Rights did not create rights. It acknowledged them. Right before the July 4 holiday, it shouldn’t have been necessary to remind the four Supreme Court dissenters of what Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. … “

In my early analysis of the ruling and taking a look at Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority opinion, I pointed out to readers then that it was Justice Scalia who pointed out the same fact that Stossel has.

Although Justice Scalia didn’t spell out something I find quite important and never considered by most in discussions about the Second Amendment early in his opinion, I would like to bring to your attention this important fact before getting into the highlights of Scalia’s definition.

Scalia points out that the way the Second Amendment is written clearly shows us that our right to keep and bear arms was a recognized, preexisting right long before the Bill of Rights was written. The Second Amendment isn’t a right granted to us by the U.S. Government. The Second Amendment merely recognizes that as free human beings we have that right.

More on District of Columbia vs. Heller

Tom Remington

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