QUORA: 'I haven't heard any valid reason to restrict [Voting] other than felony crimes. Why are so many state legislatures trying to put restrictions?'

 QUORA: 'The constitution gives the right to vote. I haven't heard any valid reason to restrict other than felony crimes. Why are so many state legislatures trying to put restrictions?'

I posted this answer:

Let me first state that I do not like the use of the words “restrict” and “restrictions” in the question. First of all, laws do not “restrict” felony crimes. They forbid them. The term “restrict” means “to confine within bounds.” Well, any rule does that. And any right, properly understood, implies boundaries--the boundary being that no one can exercise their rights in a way that violates the rights of others. 

So when the question states “I haven't heard any valid reason to restrict voting, the questioner implies that elections should have no boundaries--i.e. no rules. Then should elections be chaotic free-for-alls in which anyone can vote without registration or identity, as many times as they want, on behalf of anyone they please, dead or alive, whether one month old or 100,  under as many different names as they feel like, with votes counted in any way anyone feels like counting them? Who would trust the outcome of such an election?

All voter laws are restrictive, because they set boundaries, or rules. And these rules, like any rule, takes effort on the part of citizens. So the question “Why are so many state legislatures trying to put restrictions” on voting begs the question, Why should there be any election laws at all? The answer is obvious. The question should be, are the rules easy enough for any reasonable adult with the legal right to vote to comply with, while maintaining fair and trustworthy elections and minimizing the potential for voter fraud? 

As to why so many states are revising their election laws, it probably has a lot to do with the chaotic 2020 elections, when COVID-19 compelled states to change election procedures “on the fly” in order to have the elections. Many of the changes have proved to be popular, like early and mail-in voting, so legislatures are trying to incorporate some of the emergency changes into their general election laws. Former HHS Secretary Ben Carson made this point on CNBC in regard to early voting, which has proved very popular. My home state of New Jersey just instituted in-person early voting into its election laws for the first time, allowing for up to nine days to vote early. Georgia’s new election law codifies a minimum of 17 days for early in-person voting.

Almost all states are in the process of revising their election laws. Partisans in the press spin these proposed laws as “restrictive” if proposed by Republican legislatures and “expansive” if proposed by Democratic ones. But in fact all of these laws are restrictive in the sense of instituting or revising rules for elections. We can debate any particular election rule on the merits. But I have seen no evidence as of yet to suggest that any feature of these new election laws prevent any reasonable person, willing to make minimal effort to comply, from voting, or are intended to do so.

Of course, the U.S. Constitution doesn’t “give the right to vote.” The right to vote is a derivative of our inalienable rights, which are mentioned in the Declaration of Independence and which predate the government, as per the Declaration. The phrase “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” obviously implies some method for the people to give their consent -- i.e., the right to vote. I skipped explaining why the Constitution doesn’t “give” rights because that issue was handled reasonably well by Galen Barnaby here, although his answer goes off the rails near the end when he peddles the vast voter fraud theory.

Related Reading:

Voting laws: How Georgia compares to other states -- By David Wickert forThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Statistical Disparities Don’t Proof Discrimination in Voter ID Laws

The Vote: Get Off Your Butt and Register—But Keep the Nanny State Out of It

Voting Rights are Not the ‘Most Fundamental Right’—or Even a Fundamental Right

16 Year Old Voters? How About 21?

Memo to John D. Atlas: How About Let's Not Suppress Anybody's Vote, or Voice

Freedom Is Not About the Right to Vote, So I’m Voting Anti-Democrat Across the Board

HR-1 is An Assault on Free Speech, Property Rights, Freedom of Conscience, and Privacy

Democracy Doesn’t ‘Win’ When Free Speech is Suppressed, Voting Rights of No Voting Rights.

Star-Ledger Uses Socialist Rhetoric to Debunk Christie’s Socialist Accusations Against Biden

In a 4/27/21 editorial, Chris Christie’s lunacy about socialism, the New Jersey Star-Ledger Editorial Board (SLEB) wrote:

Gov. Chris Christie is telling friends that he may run for president in 2024, which explains why he’s now calling President Joe Biden a socialist for proposing a tax increase on the rich. “It’s nothing more than income redistribution,” Christie said during his regular appearance on ABC’s “This Week.” “It’s socialism!”

It’s a perfectly logical statement if his intention is to raise money from wealthy donors, or to tickle the fancy of the folks over at Fox News. And you can’t win the Republican presidential primary without doing this feather dance for them.

But to most Americans, that old dog won’t bark anymore. They can see with their own eyes that, that the top 1 percent now has 15 times the wealth of the bottom 50 percent combined, that the pandemic cut incomes for working people while creating 500 fresh new billionaires.

I want to focus on the last paragraph. 

“. . . the rich are capturing almost all the gains of economic growth these days.”

This is classic socialist rhetoric. The idea is that “society” creates economic growth, and that the wealth from that growth is a social (or tribal) product, not a result of individual productiveness, and that whatever wealth someone has is simply “captured” from that pile of tribal wealth. But “societies” don’t create wealth. Society is just a number of individuals, and only individuals create wealth through their own productive efforts (with the aid of free trade). The sentiment that informs that quote is the savage’s (or socialist’s) view of wealth as a fixed given, in which the “distribution” of wealth is a zero-sum game. Of course, no one has ever explained how society’s wealth comes about if no individual member actually produces wealth. A society in which its members go around capturing wealth is a primitive hunter-gatherer society, not a modern industrial one. But that rhetoric serves to disconnect producers from recognition, for political purposes.

“. . . the top 1 percent now has 15 times the wealth of the bottom 50 percent combined.”

This is a classic bate-and-switch. What the SLEB doesn’t want you to see with your own eyes is that wealth is not money, or that money is not net worth. Money is a means of the exchange of wealth, not actual wealth. Net worth is measured in dollars, but is not actual money. So, yes, the richest people have a high net worth, which is held in the form of stock in productive companies. As to actual wealth -- that is, stuff -- the wealth of the top 1% is an inconsequential pittance compared to what others hold. 

 

For example, the bottom 50% of households in America encompasses all of those earning less than about $75,000 per year. That group owns roughly half of all autos in America. Even if the top 1% owned all of the other autos, its a 1 -1 ratio, not 15 - 1 in favor of the top %. But hold on. What about the people in the 51 - 99%? Over $500,000, that’s how much. If you add in people earning up to $150,000, the auto ownership ration jumps to 91.6%. That leaves the income group earning over $150,000 with ownership of 8.4% of all autos. If you subtract people earning between $150,000 and $500,000, the percentage of auto ownership of the top 1% shrivels to an almost irrelevant percentage.

You can play this game with cell phones, homes, food, central heating, running water, air conditioning, and any other mass-market category of wealth ad infinitum, and come up with the same observation. The vast bulk of the wealth created by “the economy” is in the hands of the ordinary people. 

As to that net worth of the top 1%, most of it is held in stock, as I said. So the vast majority of the net worth of the richest people represents productive power, both as a measure of wealth created for “the masses” and of investors’ estimate of future production of wealth for “the masses,” including the bottom 50%. 

That “. . . the top 1 percent now has 15 times the wealth of the bottom 50 percent combined” is plain for “most Americans . . . [to] see with their own eyes” is a fantasy or deliberate lie perpetrated by socialists like the SLEB. You can see why Leftists would want to obfuscate the concepts of wealth, money, and net worth. It feeds their desperation to paint the American economy, and Capitalism (to the shriveling extent we still have it) as fundamentally unfair. But the act is, the wealth-filled lives we 99% dwellers enjoy is a direct corollary of the freedom of the most successful entrepreneurs -- the 1% --to build fortunes building companies that supply all of the mass-market wealth we hold, not to mention the jobs they provide.

Finally, “. . .  that the pandemic cut incomes for working people while creating 500 fresh new billionaires.”

The pandemic was not the main culprit that “cut incomes for working people.” That honor goes to the politicians’ draconian lock-down orders. That said, it was only those “working people” who lost jobs who had the incomes cut. By a 2-1 margin, Americans said they were either better off or the same financially. And as for those 500 “new billionaires,” keep in mind that many were the result of businesses that flourished as the pandemic economy shifted, saving us from a much worse economic catastrophe. Who benefitted? Working people. And remember that retirement accounts of tens of millions of ordinary savers also rose as the stock market soared. All of that aside, my answer is, So what? 

The upshot is that you need to take Leftists with a huge grain of salt. Truth is not their strength.

Related Reading:

Inequality Has Surged Since 1989, but the Lifestyle Gap Has Shrunk by John Tamny for FEE

QUORA: 'How is becoming a billionaire even possible, chronologically?'

From ‘You Didn’t Build That’ to ‘The Nation's Wealth’

All Earned Wealth, No Matter How Big the Fortune, is Deserved Whether ‘Needed’ or Not

Oxfam Attacks Prosperity, Part 1

Oxfam Attacks Prosperity, Part 2

How is it Possible that ‘1% control over 95% of the wealth?’ It’s Not, and They Don’t.

Related Viewing:

"The Unrelenting Beauty of Wealth Inequality" by John Tamny

‘Hate’ and Authoritarianism in New Jersey: Much Worse than Pollster Patrick Murray Acknowledges

In Hate is thriving in New Jersey, New Jersey Star-Ledger Guest Columnist Patrick Murray, the director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, warns of the rising activities of so-called “hate groups” and related “hate” crimes and “hate” speech. I won’t discuss those vague terms here, except to say that Murray seems to imply that “hate” refers to the collectivist notion of identifying people by ethnic, racial, or other unchosen group characteristic and then viewing other groups as dangerous or the enemy. He doesn’t mention individualism or individual rights as the only antidote. He doesn’t give any evidence that this rise in “hate” is any more than a temporary blip, although he calls it’s rise “stunning. " 

But however serious the rise in hate activity, Murray’s right to call it out. Ignoring it or downplaying it only allows it to grow into something really dangerous beyond some isolated incidents (He reports that “bias incidents,” which peaked at 876 in 2008, then fell to 367 in 2015, reversed and rose steadily to 1441 last year in NJ).

My focus here is on what Murray believes is the root cause of the rise in “hate” activity:

In any society — be it the United States, Great Britain, or Myanmar — a certain, and not insignificant, percentage of the population is willing to submit to authoritarian leadership in times of instability. This trait always lurks beneath the surface. At the same time, a segment of the public is prone to believe that one group — their group — is inherently better than others.

The intersection of these two traits — authoritarianism and intolerance [collectivism] — is the root of hate activity’s rise today. Stemming the rise of authoritarianism is a key component in reducing white nationalist activity. This question is what can we do about it.

A sizable segment of the public has replaced any prior trust in our political system with an unqualified faith in charismatic authoritarian leadership. 

My emphasis. Well, I can certainly agree that there has been a rise in “intolerance.” Just look at the rise of “identity politics,” which has found a home on the Left. Critical Race Theory dominates the Democratic Party. CRT holds that “race” -- i.e., skin color -- defines each person according to groups (collectivism), divided between “oppressed” and oppressor, with “whites” the oppressor and “people of color” the oppressed. I can think of no ideology that is more designed to feed intolerance (and injustice) than a theory that focuses on groups rather than actual people -- individuals. The recent growth of “white nationalist activity” referenced by Murray is a direct reaction to the Left’s racism/collectivism, which itself is a reaction to the individualism that forms the core of Americanism. Note that the reversal of the downtrend in bias incidents began in 2015, just as Critical Race Theory burst onto the cultural landscape, and just two years after the official founding of Black Lives Matter (CRT had been growing in academia for decades). This, in my view, is no coincidence. While Right collectivism is certainly a long-term danger to America, as of now it is a far lesser danger than Left collectivism, which has already achieved vast political power, both in NJ and in Washington.

Authoritarianism is certainly a major threat--much bigger than Murray is willing to admit. We’ve been witnessing “an unqualified faith in charismatic authoritarian leadership” in New Jersey since Governor Phil Murphy usurped the authority of the legislature in March of 2020 by declaring a public emergency over COVID-19. As I wrote last June, 

When a governor can declare a state of emergency, commandeer whatever “emergency” powers he feels like, make “law” by executive order, enforce his edicts, often unequally, however and against whomever he chooses, usurp county and municipal governments, and extend the emergency declaration in perpetuity, without limit or [legislative] accountability, we no longer have the rule of law. We don’t even have the “rule of men”. We have the rule of one man--i.e., a dictator.  No branch of government should ever have the power to both make and enforce laws.

The U.S. Constitution and the NJ Constitution, both of which Murphy swore to uphold, gives only the legislature the power to make law. Yet Murphy recently extended the “public health emergency” into the 14th month, extending his unconstitutional "law-making" -- executive order -- authoritarian rule another 30 days. He can continue this indefinitely. You’d think there would have been a massive public outcry by now, followed by a by-partisan legislative move to reign Murphy in by repealing the unconstitutional law that allowed Murphy to seize this power. 

Not so. While some members of the legislature are grumbling, Murphy continues to act unabashedly as lawmaker and law enforcer. As Jonathan D. Salant reports for NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

As Gov. Phil Murphy prepares to face the voters this November for a second term. a Stockton University Poll released Wednesday said that nearly 6 in 10 New Jerseyans approved of the job he was doing in office.

Murphy’s approval rating stood at 58% with 36% disapproving, according to the poll. It was Murphy’s highest rating ever in the Stockton poll. It was also the first poll on his job performance released this year.

While the poll did not specifically ask the question, John Froonjian, executive director of the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University, attributed the high poll rating to Murphy’s handing of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Crises give leaders a chance to show their chops,” Froonjian said. “There’s a sense that people got that when the chips were down, he stood tall and did what he had to do.”

My emphasis. Murray’s fear of rising acceptance of hate and authoritarianism in NJ is well-placed, but misdirected. Rather than look at fringe “hate” groups, he should look at the rise of racism and collectivism in the Democratic Party, which dominates the political scene in NJ. He should look at the number of NJ voters who are apparently willing to accept the authoritarianism of the Murphy Administration—58% of voters. This, not in the first panicky weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, but well over a year into it. To say this is a “not insignificant percentage of the population [that] is willing to submit to authoritarian leadership in times of instability” is a gross understatement. It is no longer a “trait” that “lurks beneath the surface.” It no longer lurks beneath the surface. It’s massive -- a majority -- at least in New Jersey.

Now that’s something to wring our hands over. And it’s coming mainly from the political Left. Murray advocates, as a way to undermine intolerance and authoritarianism, “a civic revival in this country.” He supports the NJ Assembly’s proposed Laura Wooten’s Law, which mandates civics education in middle school and creates a civics curriculum for required high school history courses. That would be great, if it recognizes that the whole point of our political system is checks and balances aimed at protecting individual rights, not majoritarianism. A "civics teachable moment" would be a great starting point. Examine the New Jersey constitution as it relates to Murphy authoritarianism, and his disregard for both the authority of the legislature and disdain for individual rights.

Related Reading:

NJ Governor Murphy’s June 6, 2020 30-Day Extension of the State’s ‘Health Emergency’ Shows the Need to Reign In Executive Power

NJ Governor Murphy’s COVID-19 Double Standard Toward the Demonstrators

Governor Murphy Doubles Down on his Double Standard

Steve Politi’s Cold Collectivist Attack on Two NJ Gym Businessmen Points to Broader Danger to Our Liberty

New Jersey’s Political Attack on Takeout Food Delivery Service Providers

The Scary Ease with Which Some Americans Accept Authoritarianism

Democratic Governors Threaten Business Owners Who Reopen Ahead of Schedule by Robby Soave for Reason.com

QUORA: ‘Why do you agree or disagree that Capitalism has been responsible for dramatically improving the working class’ standard of living?’

 QUORA *: ‘Why do you agree or disagree that Capitalism has been responsible for dramatically improving the working class’ standard of living?’

I posted this answer:

Since there are no classes (i.e., castes) under Capitalism, the question is flawed. Nonetheless, in order to answer the underlying premise of the question, I’ll take the vague term “working class” to mean individuals who are employed and being paid in the form of hourly wages.  

I not only agree, I know not only because general prosperity is in the philosophic nature of capitalism but also because I’ve observed it and lived it. 

Capitalism infers laissez-faire, meaning to leave every individual free to work and trade in the social absence of forcible interference, including by government officials, who are constitutionally limited in their legal powers to the protection of individual rights. Under such social conditions, where all aggressive physical force, both “legal” (public) and illegal (private), is banished from human relationships, the only way to improve one’s economic circumstances is through voluntary contract--that is, trade, or mutually beneficial exchange of value for value. Under capitalism, no one can get richer through force of theft, fraud, enslavement of others, or government favor. People can only enrich themselves to the extent they lift others. Capitalism is thus the system of mutual betterment in pursuit of self-improvement. Thanks to free trade, the most successful earn their fortunes by providing value, and the richest--the John D. Rockefellers and Howard Hugheses and Jeff Bezoses--get that way by providing the most value for the most people. Workers are huge beneficiaries of this Capitalist process.

I said I’ve observed and lived this truth. I’m surrounded by goods and services--from ceramic bowls to automobiles that, left to my own “working class” devices—my own labor—could never build myself. As you walk through any retail establishment, ask yourself as a “working classer” how and why the goods you observe got there. And they are provided at prices I can afford, thanks to the investments in productivity-enhancing machines and methods employed by businessmen that raise the value, and thus real wages, of employees’ labor. These goods are provided mainly by profit-seeking businessmen and entrepreneurs. Their “working classes”—their employees—are all paid for by money earned working at jobs created by these high-earning, high net-worth-creating, highly creative workers. My AT&T cell phone is the product of countless people, up and down the income scale, working for countless companies located in countless countries in countless occupations, from the mines to the AT&T retail store shelves, all working to turn nature’s raw materials into my cell phone for me, each working for his/her own self-betterment, none of whom knows me or vice-versa--a shared prosperity only possible under the rigorously protected individual freedom of Capitalism. And I earn the money to buy the phone working at a trade, plumbing, made possible not only by my own labor but by tools, materials, and processes provided by others in the same manner as my cell phone.

The “working class” has been around for thousands of years. But the living standard of workers—who mainly worked for themselves in a hand-to-mouth existence—did not start improving until the rise of modern Capitalism that came out of The Enlightenment, which introduced the values of respect for reason, individualism (including individual rights), and limited rights-protecting government. Over the last 250 years, the general living standard, which has been identified as “The Great Enrichment”, has exploded up to 100-fold in parts of the world that embraced a substantial degree of Capitalism. The so-called “working class” certainly is included in this enrichment. Anyone willing to work can participate in Capitalism’s extensive network of voluntary cooperative productiveness, raising themselves economically as far as their ability, ambition, personal circumstances, values, judgement, and rational choices will carry them. There are no guarantees, but no victims. There is only the freedom to try.

Of course, laissez-faire capitalism--the complete separation of economics and state--doesn’t exist in pure form anywhere, and never has. Economies have been and are corrupted by varying degrees of government-imposed redistributive taxes, rights-violating regulations, self-aggrandizing cronyism, and other forms of coercive interference into the economy. But to the extent that laissez-faire exists in a nation and between nations of the world, people who rarely even know each other get better together through the win-win peaceful coexistence of trade, resulting in a natural rise in the general standard of living. 

Do I agree that Capitalism has been responsible for dramatically improving the “working class” standard of living? You bet. While objective laws, labor unions, and the like have their place in a free society based on individual rights (which is what Capitalism is), no act of government or “working class” movement could have lifted the common man’s living standard out of the grinding poverty that existed for millenia, and never has. That lift was achieved by the liberation of the “common” or ordinary individual that came out of the Enlightenment and is which we call Capitalism. That I, a trade union worker, can sit on my couch, with my Dell computer, open it to a website named “QUORA,” and answer this question, while snacking on cheap food purchased from a nearby supermarket, in the comfort and safety of my private home, is my proof of the truth of the fact that “Capitalism has been responsible for dramatically improving the working class’ standard of living.” 

* [Quora is a social media website founded by two former Facebook employees. According to Wikipedia:

Quora is a question-and-answer website where questions are created, answered, edited and organized by its community of users. The company was founded in June 2009, and the website was made available to the public on June 21, 2010.[3]Quora aggregates questions and answers to topics. Users can collaborate by editing questions and suggesting edits to other users' answers.[4]

You can also reply to other users’ answers.]

Related Reading:

Inequality Has Surged Since 1989, but the Lifestyle Gap Has Shrunk by John Tamny for FEE

QUORA: ‘How is capitalism NOT a zero-sum game?’

The Capitalist Manifesto by Andrew Bernstein  

QUORA: ‘Why has modern capitalism risen in the West?’

QUORA: ‘How do capitalists justify the inequality/high disparity part of a capitalistic society that a socialistic system tends to stop?’

QUORA: 'Can certain forms of capitalism be made to work for the people instead of just the elite?'

QUORA*: ‘Is it fair to claim that capitalism does not create better lives, but simply shifts the suffering somewhere else?’

QUORA: 'Why do people think capitalism is ethical?'

QUORA: ‘Is it fair to say capitalism has killed more people than communism?’

QUORA *: 'How is capitalism good despite the fact that it creates higher and lower classes?'

QUORA: '[W]hy do we ignore all the examples of capitalism failing, like the major divide between the wealthy and the poor in the US?'

QUORA: ‘Given that I live in a capitalist society, how can I avoid having my labor exploited?’

QUORA: "Is having an 'Anarcho-capitalist' society possible?"

On ‘Capitalist Government’ and Corporate Bailouts

QUORA: ‘Is capitalism voluntary?’

 

QUORA: ‘Is fascism a capitalist ideology?‘

 

QUORA: ‘Can democracy survive capitalism?’

Answering QUORA Questions About the Second Amendment

QUORA: ‘What would happen if SCOTUS were to rule that the right to keep and bear arms is to be limited only to those people who are members of the well-regulated militia?’ 

I posted this answer:

Nothing. The Ninth Amendment reads “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” The right of a group of citizens to keep and bear arms as an association is an extension of the individual’s right to keep and bear arms. Rights belong to individuals. An individual does not need to join a group like a well-regulated militia to acquire that right. So even in the event that the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment only enumerates the private right of a militia, the individual right to keep and bear arms is not infringed.

QUORA: Where does the Second Amendment say that individual citizens have the right to have guns? 

I posted this answer:

Wrong question. The U.S. Constitution is a document that enumerates the powers of the government, thus limiting the government’s powers. The proper framing of the issue is, “Where does the Constitution empower the government to prohibit individual citizens from owning guns?” Answer: It doesn’t. Hence, however the Second Amendment is interpreted, the right to own guns is not affected. The Ninth Amendment, which reads “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people,” assures that right. 

QUORA: ‘Do you believe the 2nd Amendment gives US citizens the right to carry a gun?’ 

I posted this answer:

Rights are not “given” by the Constitution. Rights precede government. As the Declaration of Independence clearly states, “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.” The proper purpose of a government is to recognize and protect individual rights, not grant them. The fact that the Constitution enumerates some rights, like the rights to free speech or public trial by jury, does not mean only those rights. As the Ninth Amendment reads, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” So however the “right of the people to keep and bear arms” is interpreted, and given the fact that the Constitution does not grant the government the power to forbid private ownership of arms, the right of an individual to carry a gun is absolute so long as the individual does not use it in a way that threatens or violates the rights of others.

QUORA: ‘How would you amend the 2nd Amendment?’

I posted this answer:

I wouldn’t bother to amend the Second Amendment. Granted, the wording leaves open the question of whether the Second Amendment covers individual or collective rights. But we need not agonize over the wording of the Second Amendment. America’s concept of governance is based on constitutionally enumerated governmental powers. To my knowledge, the U.S. Constitution does not grant the government the power to forbid the private individual right to possess arms. 

The Constitution does make clear that the individual rights explicitly covered in the Bill of Rights, including the 2nd Amendment, are far from the only rights held by the people as individuals. While the Second Amendment wording may be ambiguous and open to debate, the right to “bear arms” is most clearly protected by the Ninth Amendment.  That Amendment states “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” It follows that the individual right to bear arms, including guns, is unquestionable. 

The right to bear arms, including a gun, is an inalienable individual right protected, if not by the Second Amendment, then by the Ninth Amendment. There is no need to amend the Second Amendment.

In regards to a clear understanding of individual rights, I recommend Moral Rights and Political Freedom by Professor Tara Smith 

Related Reading:

Burden of Proof is On Government in Concealed Carry Case

Gun Control Should focus On Principles, Not Guns

Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens’ Scary Attack on the Right of ‘Personal Self-Defense'

Collectivized Rights by Ayn Rand

The Second Amendment Is About an Individual Right, Not a Collective One by Michael Marshall for The University of Virginia School of Law 

Putting the Second Amendment Second: Reframing the constitutional debate over gun control, by AKHIL REED AMAR for Slate

My comment on David Johnson’s answer to QUORA: ‘Which amendment gives U.S. citizens the right to bear arms?’