Comment

Newt Gingrich - Gun rights come from God, not Constitution

7
Hal_100005/01/2011 11:05:24 am PDT

Sorry to disagree with you guys, but Gingrich is right. Which word in “endowed by their creator” is confusing you? Granted, that’s life liberty and pursuit, but the concept is the same.

Leaving God out of it for the moment, the FF clearly thought that our rights were intrinsic and the verbiage of the Constitution reflects this. It’s not “Congress shall give people freedom of speech” but “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech”. Reagan said the same thing, in contrasting our system against the Soviets — saying our Constitution is the people giving power to the government, not the government magnanimously granting us rights. And the 9th and 10th amendments clearly state that we have rights not listed in there. The whole abortion debate keys off the right to privacy — one not explicitly granted.

This is a critical point when you’re talking about habeas and other rights for terror suspects: that the right are intrinsic, not given to us by government.