Dismantling the Bill of Rights Is No Solution

December 19, 2024 by J.B. Shurk

After the recent school shooting in Madison, Wisconsin, the usual suspects immediately called for more “gun control.” Joe Biden’s White House released a statement demanding these additional infringements upon Americans’ Second Amendment rights: “Universal background checks. A national red flag law. A ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.” (The president conveniently ignored reports that the teenaged attacker used a 9mm pistol.) Democrat Congressman Mark Pocan insists that gun manufacturers be held responsible for the school shooter’s violence. Disgraced former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe (who was rewarded for leaking classified information and lying to federal agents) wants “legislation that changes the context of gun ownership” in the United States and new requirements that “eliminate the ability” of Americans “to purchase guns without a background check.”

So the departing president wants executive authority to determine which Americans enjoy Second Amendment protections. The congressman from Wisconsin wants to hold manufacturers criminally and civilly liable for the misdeeds of others. And the former acting director of the FBI wants to fundamentally transform the “context of gun ownership.” What part of “shall not be infringed” do they not understand?

If we were still a country that took loyalty oaths seriously, it would be worth noting that all three of these men raised their hands and solemnly swore to protect and defend the Bill of Rights. As retired FBI supervisory special agent Arthur P. Meister once wrote, “all public office oaths require true faith and allegiance to principles of lawful authority derived from the Constitution.” An official’s “deference” to the Bill of Rights “must trump all other promises and commitments” precisely because “the public elects, empowers, and allows a select few to govern many.” The U.S. government cannot expect public trust if its officers regularly violate their oaths to the U.S. Constitution. Accordingly, if faith in the U.S. government is historically weak, then government officials should consider their disregard for the Bill of Rights the proximate cause.

Unconstitutional attempts to confiscate Americans’ firearms have become such a regular reaction to mass shootings that lawmakers act as if erasing the Second Amendment were no big deal. “Oh, what’s the harm?” they dismissively suggest on cable television. “It’s just an annoying little right. It was written, like, three centuries ago...by white supremacists! And if it saves even one child, it’s worth it!”

It does not take much mental acuity to recognize how dangerous the “Let’s do it for the children” exception to the Constitution is in practice. To save the children from “misinformation,” we must embrace censorship! To save the children from “hate,” we must snoop on their private text messages and their parents’ bank accounts! To save the children from inequality and State-sponsored religion, we must discriminate by race and ban school prayer! To save the children from “global warming,” we must redistribute wealth and ration life-saving energies! “Doing it for the children” makes it super-easy to dispense with the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments!

Surely that’s constitutional, right? James Madison must have squeezed some special language into one of the Constitution’s articles or amendments that clarifies, “All of this goes straight out the window if doing so might save the children.” You can’t find anything like that in the text? Don’t worry; some left-leaning jurist who prefers to make up the Constitution as we go has almost certainly discovered the “Do it for the children” escape clause hidden within an imaginary penumbra or emanation of the Bill of Rights.

Aside from the detestable way “gun control” advocates flippantly dispatch Americans’ Second Amendment protections “for their own good,” I also find their “commonsense solutions” repugnantly shortsighted. Biden and McCabe desperately want universal background checks and red flag laws to filter Americans into two groups: those who are “permitted” to exercise their Second Amendment rights and those who will be denied the “privilege.” This always conjures in my mind the image of well armed federal agents patting me down while government psychiatrists ask me a series of probing, personal questions before informing me which of my constitutional rights the U.S. government has — in its infinite wisdom — decided that I may retain.

Now, if all Americans were impartially treated to such unpleasant invasiveness, surely some of the Democrats’ favorite people would be forced to surrender their rights. Hunter Biden and other members of the Biden Crime Family? Sorry, no Second Amendment protections for people who sell out their country for hookers, drugs, and cash and require eleven years’ worth of presidential pardons for crimes against the United States (including, if you can believe it, federal gun charges). All those Bluesky nutjobs celebrating the assassination of a husband, father, and businessman in New York City? Nope, those guys can’t be trusted to own a deadly weapon, either. They’re too psychologically unstable to pick up a butter knife without supervision.

In fact, if well armed federal agents and crack squads of government psychiatrists were empowered to hand out Second Amendment rights — and if they did so without fear or favor — some of the most famous people in Washington, D.C., would soon find themselves second-class citizens. After all, had disgraced former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe not been given special treatment, he would have been prosecuted and likely convicted for unlawfully divulging State secrets and subsequently lying to government agents about his documented crimes. In a world where criminal statutes are equally enforced and background checks are universally applied, McCabe would be not only a convicted felon, but also a disarmed one.

So would James Comey, John Brennan, Hillary Clinton, and every other co-conspirator of the Russia collusion hoax who lied to Congress, mismanaged classified documents, defrauded the American people, or destroyed subpoenaed evidence. As a new congressional report concludes, Liz Cheney likely broke “numerous federal laws” while serving as vice chair of Nancy Pelosi’s January 6 Select Committee. There are credible allegations that J6 committee members destroyed evidence. Both J6 Select Committee chairman Bennie Thompson and Russia collusion propagandist Adam Schiff are reportedly looking for “pre-emptive” pardons from Joe Biden. If government agents enforced criminal laws as stringently against their own VIPs as they have against J6 political prisoners, pro-life protesters, election integrity activists, and anyone tangentially connected to President Trump, then many of Barack Obama’s and Joe Biden’s most prominent political allies would have faced prosecution and the loss of their Second Amendment “privileges.” Instead, they laugh it up on cable news programs while pushing red flag laws and gun confiscation for everyone else.

National red flag laws won’t be any more evenhandedly administered than national criminal statutes are today. Two-tiered justice in America is not the exception; it thrives wherever Democrat prosecutors and politically partisan judges have control. Democrats know this. They know that criminal justice policy flows from the president, the attorney general, the FBI director, the heads of other law enforcement agencies, and the U.S. attorneys across the country who would decide how universal background checks and red flag laws operate.

All of this raises the question: now that President Trump is returning to office next month, do Democrats still want to give elected politicians control over constitutional rights? Shouldn’t they be concerned that the man they have compared to “Hitler” for eight years would abuse his authority over how red flag laws are applied? Shouldn’t Democrats fear that a so-called “fascist” administration would protect its friends and deprive its enemies of Second Amendment rights? Shouldn’t constitutional rights be so cherished and guarded that they remain insulated from the whims of any government official — whether “authoritarian” or not?

If Democrats can’t see the slippery slope of empowering politicians to dismantle the Bill of Rights, they are a danger to us and to themselves. Isn’t that a red flag?