Power

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.
- Lord Acton, from letter to Bishop Creighton

The Natural Rights to Keep and Bear Arms

I don't know if I "chafe" at the prospect of making my blog have a political taint. We're all political; we all channel Machiavelli when we really want something. And writing a blog about being a gun enthusiast invites a politically motivated attack.

That all has the potential to be true, as long as I know the definition of politics. Well, at least this disclaimer is halfassed. 

I'm concerned that the leading defenders of our Second Amendment rights are painting us into a corner. Our Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms are actually our natural rights. And that appears to have been the view of the original representatives that debated the inclusion of Bill of Rights in the Constitution to be ratified by the states. Many of the representatives felt the Bill of Rights were not needed, because the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights were self-evident natural rights that every person was not "entitled to," but owned outright. The Bill of Rights was included to limit the power of government, not to entitle citizens privileges.

By treating our rights to keep and bear arms as a legislated right and therefore a privilege, we lower our moral platform to the level of the misguided statist socialists who are attacking our natural rights.