"We're Not Worthy...."

"Wayne's World - We're Not Worthy!" (24 sec.)

     NBC found a special snowflake to dispense his "wisdom" concerning the right to bear arms, based on his experience with concealed carry. The author is Greg Hunter, a criminal defense lawyer in Arlington, Virginia, and in his article, "Walmart banned open carry and I know why. I paid attention when I carried my gun around," he explains why, in his opinion, his experience carrying a concealed handgun has given him special insight into why open carry should be prohibited. And, to be honest, he apparently wasn't very good at keeping his gun concealed, so perhaps he was more of an open carrier. Anyway, he writes:

But over time, I learned something that I wish more gun owners knew: Carrying a gun isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I learned that most people I encountered actually didn’t feel better knowing that I had a gun. And, though I tried to keep it concealed in a hip holster under a shirt or jacket, the people who inevitably did glimpse it frequently wondered why I had it and whether my gun or my presence put them in danger — like the staff and customers who panicked at that Walmart in Missouri. Even the people who knew and trusted me — knowing that I was a responsible gun owner who had been threatened — wondered if being near me in public exposed them to the same danger in which I’d found myself.

Most gun owners that concealed carry probably haven't learned what Hunter learned because they keep their firearms concealed. They don't tell people, and they don't flash it around.

     But then Hunter goes on to explain why only law enforcement or the military should have firearms: "I also learned that carrying a gun — even with a license, training and a real need for it — doesn’t make me as worthy of that responsibility as real cops and soldiers are[.]" Wow, we have to be worthy before exercising our rights under the law. I did not know. Thanks for the helpful tip, Hunter.

     Unfortunately, this is not the only stupidity NBC is foisting on the public. In a list of "related" articles was a link to an opinion piece with the title: "Like the Bible, the Constitution can be a harmful document in the wrong hands" by Noah Berlatsky. This editorial discusses a book, The Cult of the Constitution, by supposed "legal scholar" Mary Anne Franks, who contends that Americans have too much reverence for the Constitution (by which she means the Bill of Rights). From the article:

      "When I say that reverence is a problem, I don't mean in the sense of respect for foundational principles that we're trying to aspire to," Franks said. "What I'm concerned about is reverence that leads us to create an idea of the Constitution based on our intuitions of what we think should be there, rather than what is."

       Franks compares constitutional fundamentalism to Biblical fundamentalism. Both, she argues, insist that a text is both infallible and instantly comprehensible while pushing highly contentious interpretations as an excuse to harm others without remorse. "The combination of reverence and ignorance is at the heart of all fundamentalism," Franks writes.

       The clearest example of constitutional fundamentalism is the extreme rhetoric that has grown up around the Second Amendment. Second Amendment fundamentalists, led by the National Rifle Association, argue that the Constitution must always allow individuals to bear arms, though the text of the amendment is about the right to a well-regulated militia.

      Proponents further argue that the supposed right of individuals to carry assault rifles is the one true right that protects all others. People must have guns to defend themselves from government overreach.In this context, any attempt to regulate guns can be presented as an apocalyptic descent into tyranny. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump, for example, hinted that it wouldn't be surprising if gun rights proponents assassinated Hillary Clinton if she is elected president to prevent her infringing on their Second Amendment rights.

       Gun fundamentalists, Franks says, tell themselves, "I carry a gun because it's my constitutional right, and I feel better when I have it and the fact that it makes you uncomfortable and that it objectively makes you less safe is something I just don't care about."

       This essentially selfish logic is also a hallmark of First Amendment fundamentalism. Unlike Second Amendment fundamentalism, which is mostly a phenomenon of the right, the First Amendment is embraced and revered across the political spectrum.

       Unlike Second Amendment fundamentalism, which is mostly a phenomenon of the right, the First Amendment is embraced and revered across the political spectrum.

       Nonetheless, Franks says, First Amendment fundamentalism and Second Amendment fundamentalism create similar problems. First Amendment absolutists see it as an absolute right that must always be protected. So, the American Civil Liberties Union defended the right of neo-Nazi marchers in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 not just to march, but also to march on whatever route they wanted, despite the town's safety concerns.

      The ACLU won. But the result wasn't actually free speech for all. Instead, violence broke out and a white supremacist murdered a counterprotester named Heather Heyer. Giving neo-Nazis the right to organize and march ended one woman's ability to speak forever.

Like most pretend legal scholars, Franks implicitly advances the proposition that the Bill of Rights is aspirational rather than statements of law. That is, she doesn't believe that the Bill of Rights should be read and enforced like other laws, but is somehow open to special treatment where courts or legislatures (depending on which branch the liberals dominate) can arbitrarily decide how and when it should be enforced, if at all.

     Of course, we would never read any other law this way. A statute that limited the speed of automobiles on a street to 30 miles per hour, for instance, would never be treated the same way as are our Bill of Rights, subject to dozens or hundreds of exceptions, limitations, and long arguments on what "30 MPH" really meant. We wouldn't hear arguments that the 30 MPH was a prohibition on cars that can go faster than 30 MPH. We wouldn't have scholars and politicians argue with a straight face that the 30 MPH limit speed limit meant that only certain cars, such as passenger cars, were allowed on the street, but sports cars (which are only built for racing!) should not be allowed.

     No, what Franks is really complaining about is the public's expectation that courts and legislators respect the law. Which they don't.