Eviscerating the 2nd Amendment

In 2001, I wrote an op-ed in which I warned that if we Christians and freedom-loving people did not take action, the church was going to come under attack by the federal government and pastors would risk legal repercussions for preaching what the Bible says.

Several of my friends and acquaintances disagreed with me, as did no few readers. A lawyer friend was emphatic in telling me there was no way the Constitution would allow that to happen. The same lawyer emailed me a year later telling me that he would never have imagined it possible, but, alas, I had been correct in my prediction.

It's not prescience – it's not my belief in the inerrant word of Scripture pursuant to eschatology. For me, it's common sense: As government moves further away from the constraints of the Constitution, the greater the urgency for that government to control the people.

Which brings me to my point today. If Obama and the federal government are successful in depriving us of our Second Amendment rights, what will they deprive us of next? And let there be no doubt: Even restrictions placed on our right to own and bear arms deprive us of our constitutional rights under said Amendment. And the federal government has shown itself to be committed to controlling We the People and dictating what they define as best for us.

If fallacious arguments such as Giltlow v. New York, Abington School District v. Daniel Schempp and Murray v. Curlett led to the Supreme Court reading into law that which Jefferson never meant and the Founding Fathers never envisioned – what will a president and Congress who openly set themselves above the will of the people deprive us of next if they are successful in depriving us of our Second Amendment rights?

If the much disputed and often misunderstood H.R. 347, "Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011," is viewed by many in the legal and government realm as needful and good, what will these same people defend moving forward?

Keep in mind that 63 percent of the nation bitterly opposed Obama's Erebusic health-care plan. Yet by using blackmail, lies and Chicago strong-arm tactics, Congress passed the hated legislation.

If we are deprived of our Second Amendment rights, can the rights provided us under the First Amendment be far behind? And I point out for those prepared to disagree with me that it is freedom of speech provided under the First Amendment that allows a dissident to burn the American flag on the ground. It also allows so-called artwork that is the most vulgar representations of biblical personages to be protected as freedom of expression provided under the First Amendment. Even though said artwork is government-sponsored and taxpayer-funded under constraint of law, there are no outcries about the separation of church and state in those instances.

But somehow that same freedom of speech and freedom of expression get lost and are forgotten for the person standing in front of abortion mills offering alternatives to pregnant women that do not include murdering their unborn child.

I was right in 2001. In the past nearly 12 years since I wrote the above-referenced column, families have been sent to jail for holding a Bible study in their private homes on their private property. Pastors have been threatened and/or charged with violations under hate-speech laws for preaching what the Bible says about homosexuality.

We are already deprived true freedom of speech when a white person is criminally charged if they call a black person a nigger, but blacks calling themselves the same is viewed as somehow being a term of endearment. Homosexuals publicly call members of the tea party "tea baggers," which is a reprobate and debaucherous form of sexual activity performed by homosexual men. But woe be the heterosexual who uses a pejorative against them.

As commentator Jonathan Alter pointed out, Obama himself referred to the tea party as "tea baggers" in November 2009. But the least disagreement with his policies is viewed as based on racism. That's freedom of speech for him but not for us.

Our constitutional rights and freedoms have been under attack since before slavery, but at no time has there been a full-out assault as there is today. If we allow the government to deprive us of our Second Amendment rights there is nothing to stop them from depriving us of whatever other right they deem unpopular to them.