Natural Law is immutable. It serves as the universal basis for all western civilization systems of law. It is most perfectly recited in The Constitution of the United States of America. Both are immortal. Both are the ultimate arbiter of human rights. Self defense is an inherent human right.
"No government has the legitimate authority to forbid a person from exercising her human right to defend herself against violent attack or to forbid her from taking the steps and acquiring the tools necessary to exercise that right", The Human Right of Self-defense, Kopel D., Gallant P., Eisen J.D., BYU Journal of Public Law [Volume 221], a recommended read.
The authors of the United States Declaration of Independence refer to "the Laws of Nature" before citing equality and other "unalienable" rights as "self-evident". Their deliberations and final writings record the absolute insistence that the concept of unalienable and self-evident flow directly from the Supreme inherent natural rights of man. Other legal scholars have omitted 'supreme' presumably so not to exclude atheists from enjoying the same rights.
Natural rights in jurisprudence and political philosophy is a system of right or justice common to all humankind and derived from nature rather than from the rules of society, or positive law. The concept can be traced to Aristotle, who held that what was “Just by nature".
Natural law or the law of nature (Latin /ex naturalis) has been described as law whose content is set by nature and therefore has universal validity. Natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature and deduce binding rules of moral behavior. The phrase natural law is opposed to positive law, which is man-made of a given political community, society, or nation-state, and thus can function as a standard by which to measure the correctness of man made statutory law. If the man made statute does not comport with natural law it is not held to be legitimate authority.
The framers of the Constitution unequivocally affirmed natural law as the singular basis for the construction of all positive law by which the nation was to be governed. It was clear that even with the most exhaustive effort to enumerate all the inherent rights of man, such was not possible to achieve . The matter was resolved by limiting the powers of the federal government, and reserving all others to the States or the people. Neither the States nor the Federal government were empowered to limit or abrogate any inherent natural right of the people, self-defense being first among equals.
Assuming the Founders began their efforts with the recitation of several inalienable human rights considered to be sacrosanct, they next crafted a means of protecting them. Thus the Second Amendment was inscribed in both the Constitution and Bill of Rights, that is, the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Challenges to this sacred right where finally put to rest by the United States Supreme Court in
District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and
McDonald v. Chicago (2010).
Is there anyone who can not understand that self-defense is an inherent natural or human right, and the possession of a tool to enable it is the corollary of that right? Yes, despots and progressives, arguably not different, because both do not believe in the concept of individual freedom, and fear its power to interfere with their achieving the goal of control of the individual. Self-defense raises the specter of resistance , a characteristic incompatible with control.
It follows in their enlightened reality that logically one should be forbidden from “acquiring the tools necessary to exercise” the individual natural right to defend. Anti-gun organizations, like global warming cabals, are a lucrative business. One of the more successful is Handgun Control, Inc., re-christened the Brady Campaign…Sarah, bless her, ‘husband shot - guns bad’. Its influence among legislators is now satisfactorily diminished.
Priority for despots and progressives is to disarm the citizen and arm the state…where do you call home?
