The Dec of Indy and the Constitution are not equal to the Bible. Only the Bible outlines in explicit detail the "rights" we have been endowed by our Creator. May people (especially Christians) get this mixed up.
Our freedoms are limited every second of our lives, and in particular, being Americans. We simply cannot do what we wish. Even the 1st Ammendment does not grant us full rights to say anything we want whenever we want. The right to bear arms as "stated" does not at all require there are no circumstances where it should reasonably be restricted.
That is an illogical argument.
My mind is still open to the whole subject of gun ownership, by the way. Although I would not take a bullet for my right to fire a bullet...if you can follow..
Our rights are properly confined only by impact on the rights of others. I cannot slander you, for example. I cannot shoot at you unless you represent a clear threat to me.
But what Rudy seeks is something else entirely. He seeks to pre-emptively negate our right to bear arms because he doesn't trust us, or thinks the government should be in the job of defending citizens and private citizens have no real role in defending themselves other than to call 9-11. That is the real problem here. Not that rights have limits. But that government seeks to limit rights without cause or proper enumerated authority.
Historically, that's an either/or rather than an and/not equation....if you can follow..
It is not an issue of limits, it is an issue of responsibility. You do indeed have rights to do as you wish - and with those rights come the responsibilities to suffer the consequences.
You do indeed have the right to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater:
- If there is no fire, you are responsible for any harm done
- If there IS a fire, you acted responsibly by informing others
- If there is no fire, but you are a performer and the audience knows it's part of the act and no harm follows, no problem.
Unfortunately the notion of responsibility has been supplanted with pre-emption, limiting action before responsibility need be determined. Restricting acts without establishing deliniation between responsibility issues is unconstitutional; saying "you can't have an M16" is unacceptably unconstitutional precisely because there is no indication that my having one would lead to harmful misuse thereof, and the restriction prevents my contributing to "the security of a free state".
Only in the last few decades has the notion of rights really been supplanted by the notion of warding off responsibility via pre-emptive restrictions - exactly what the Founding Fathers fought to reject and replace with rights, liberties & freedoms.
No, it doesn't, and your statement about the Bible is an irrelevant strawman.
Our freedoms are limited every second of our lives, and in particular, being Americans. We simply cannot do what we wish. Even the 1st Amendment does not grant us full rights to say anything we want whenever we want. The right to bear arms as "stated" does not at all require there are no circumstances where it should reasonably be restricted.
The 1st Amendment does not grant any rights, period. It is a prohibition on the power of the government. Do you understand what "Congress shall make no law" means?
That is an illogical argument.
No, the "illogic" is yours. You attempted to sidestep the argument by interjecting an irrelevant reference to the Bible and claiming or implying that outlining "in explicit detail the "rights" we have been endowed by our Creator" was necessary to properly interpret and apply the Declaration and the Constitution. You have things exactly backwards.
The Declaration and Constitution make no attempt nor provision for outlining our rights "in specific detail" - they simply state that the source of our rights is our Creator, give a few examples for illustration and theoretical, foundational justification, and then proceed to the business of "detailing explicitly" ONLY the "limited powers" delegated to the government by the People. And, just to make sure there's no misunderstanding about the explicitly detailed powers of government versus the general, sovereign rights of the People, they included the 9th and 10th Amendments.
I have no wish to "pile on" here, and wish you well. I just hope you'll one day be able to breach that barrier you keeping banging against when the facts and logic of this issue carry you to conclusions you so obviously, emotionally don't want to reach.