Second Amendment enshrines a “first class right.”

Vincent J. Curtis

26 June 22

Lost amid the furor from the overturning of Roe v. Wade was the one-day wonder of the affirmation of the plain English reading of the Second Amendment.  After Heller and MacDonald, the U.S. Supreme Court had made it clear that the Second Amendment was an individual right, and that the right of self-protection was at the core of its purpose.  The New York State law that was overturned plainly violated the stricture “shall not be infringed.”

The majority decision, written by Clarence Thomas, stressed that the right to bear arms was as privileged a right as the right to free speech, to practice one’s religion, to peaceably assemble, and to confront one’s accuser.  Furthermore, the right applied equally outdoors as well as indoors.  No American is required to demonstrate to state officials sufficient reason to be allowed to speak in public, to practice one’s religion, confront one’s accuser, and so on.  The Second Amendment is on par with the First, the Six, and the Fourteenth, and therefore no “may issue” law is constitutional.  The logic is straightforward and ineluctable.  “Shall not be infringed” is unequivocal.

If the Roe decision is of concern in Canada, so ought also the Second Amendment decision.  Canadians also have the natural right of self-defence, and the law concerning the keeping and bearing of arms in Canada derive from the same English statute as the Second Amendment, namely the Bill of Rights of 1689.

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I used the word "enshrined" instead of "confers" because the Heller decisions held that the Second Amendment simply recognized a pre-existing right at Common Law, the right of self-defense and the right conferred by the 1689 Bill of Rights the Right of His Majesty's Protestant Subjects to keep and bear arms according to law.