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Katygunnut wrote:Your statement above (the part that I bolded) seems to be saying that certain rights cannot be rights of men, because there are places where men do not have these rights. I would assert that men only lack these rights when a government has taken them away from such men. When you and I prevent a government from taking away our rights, that is NOT the same thing as the government granting us a right. By extension, I guess I should thank the criminal who was prevented from stealing my car since he gave me a car.

I completely agree with you. I would make the slight edit to say that in those places, people are having their rights ignored or abused, not taken away. They retain the right, but the government is blocking the free exercise of those rights. It's a nuance, but an important one.

Saying that the government is taking people's human/natural/innate/inalienable rights leaves the conversation open to how much they can take. It becomes a conversation of negotiations and individual values. By stating that some governments abuse people's human rights, there is no allowance for restricting those rights or for joining their ranks.

djjoshuad wrote:Also, the constitution of the united states is not about enumerating rights granted by any particular god (the word "god" is not written once in the constitution). It's about rights granted by the government to its citizens.

I agree with you that a government has a moral, ethical, and legal responsibility to regulate weapons. The word God is in many contextual documents which show the state of mind, the culture, and the reasoning of the framers. Their personal faith lives isn't important, but those documents show that the framers were recognizing what is today often referred to as natural law, or basic truths that apply to all people in all places. These natural laws do not rely on religious beliefs, though a religious man believes that they are rights endowed by a Creator. This is an important distinction because the framers did not believe a government granted its citizens certain rights, but that all of the citizens were endowed by their creator by certain inalienable rights which the government could not infringe. This overriding principle of natural law further informed their structure of government which clearly included the people investing the government with certain rights and duties, as well as the responsibility to not infringe upon an individual's natural rights. It's a matter of the people granting rights to the government, not the other way around.

I agree with you that unrestricted and unrestrained access to firearms is not one of those enumerated natural laws. The right to protect and defend himself, including from tyranny, is. Our Supreme Court set legal precedent in saying that in the United States, the exercise of that individual right is intrinsically linked with the right to keep and bear arms, specifically firearms. I do think the distinction you raise (that that does not mean that the right to keep and bear firearms without restriction is therefore a God-given right) is an important one which frames the discussion and responsibilities and roles of people and governments. It's important to use our words precisely in order to productively advance the conversation, especially when speaking of such long-standing, important, and complex issues which touch on religion, philosophy, history, government, sociology, ethics, and more.