Seven in Fourteen

[X_Digger]

28. No, the bill of rights "grants" no rights. *sigh*

It protects pre-existing rights.

If you repealed the second amendment, the right to keep and bear arms would go from being one explicitly protected at a federal level to a right protected explicitly at the state level, and implicitly by the ninth amendment.

That is one of the core tenets of the enlightenment- that governments are instituted among men to protect rights. (Sound familiar?)

From US v Cruikshank:

"It has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right. The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it “shall not be infringed.” As we said in United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 553 (1876), “this is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.

Read the preamble to the Bill of Rights:

THE Conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution

Restrictive clauses against whom? Abuse of whose powers?

The bill of rights is a 'the government shall not' document, not a 'the people can' document.