Op-Ed: God-given, not government granted, guides 2nd Amendment

Patrick Ryan, a Democrat running for Congress in New York, told a CNN audience that one of his political platforms is to put into effect strict limits on the Second Amendment — on the right of citizens to bear arms.

He says it’s only logical; the First Amendment comes with limits, so why not the second, as well?

Well, sorry, Mr. Ryan. But the Second Amendment doesn’t stem from what government wants or wishes. The Second Amendment, like the First, is God-given, not government granted.

Citizens of America have Second Amendment rights because they live and breathe — not because government officials have chosen to bestow them with such, as some sort of privilege.

We know this because our country was founded on the principle that our rights come from God, and that our government is only instituted among the people to secure those rights and protect them from infringement. Moreover, when our government begins to overstep its rightful bounds, and when the public servants who are hired by way of vote begin to trample those God-given rights and usher in an form of governance that is destructive of that idea, then it is the right of the people to alter or abolish that governing system and institute a new one.

That’s in our DNA; that’s our country’s guiding principle.

Click here to read the entire op-ed in the Washington Times.