Attacking the Bill of Rights through the Second Amendment

Constitutional Conservatives are not framing the current gun debate correctly. This issue is much larger than the right to keep and bear arms. It is about all of the rights delineated in the Bill of Rights 

The Framers of the Constitution were mainly focused on establishing the framework of an effective federal government. Therefore, the original Constitution contained very few individual rights guarantees. Some prominent members of the Constitutional Convention (including James Madison) believed that the Constitution protected liberty primarily through its division of powers that made it difficult for an oppressive majorities to form and capture power to be used against minorities. Charles Pinckney proposed that several rights guarantees be added to the Constitution, but his proposal was rejected. 

However, when it came time for the states to ratify the Constitution, the Anti-Federalists believed that the new system posed a threat to individual liberties. With ratification in jeopardy, the Federalists agreed to add a Bill of Rights. Thomas Jefferson wrote to Madison, "A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth."  (emphasis added)

Note carefully the purpose of the Bill of Rights as articulated by Jefferson -- to protect rights against oppressive governmental infringement. 

Madison was eventually convinced that a declaration of rights should be added to the Constitution and he became the primary drafter of the Bill of Rights. Madison believed that the Bill of Rights would be a mechanism that could be used to rally people against a future oppressive government. 

Constitutional conservatives should be framing the gun debate as an attempt by an oppressive government to impose tyranny by destroying the entire Bill of Rights. This makes the current attack on the Second Amendment even more insidious than it appears on the surface. If the Second Amendment can be effectively overridden by executive order, there is nothing preventing similar overrides of the right of free speech (ever heard of the "fairness doctrine?"), free exercise of religion (e.g., Hobby Lobby), protection from unreasonable search and seizure, the right to peaceably assemble, the right to "invoke the Fifth" against self-incrimination, or the right to a speedy trial. 

Even Americans who elect not to exercise their right to keep and bear arms should strongly oppose intrusion into the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment, because there is no way to know which other right in the Bill of Rights will be next.