This thread has inspired me to post a paper I wrote for a Political Science class I had (I'll post it in the constitution section, the following is not the paper).
When the bill of rights were being proposed, many people were against it, because they believed the government would use the "rights" as a guideline for what they can and can not do. Which is not how governmet is supposed to work. WE are supposed to tell THEM what they can and can not do. It is for this very reason the preamble to the Bill of Rights was written.
“THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will worst ensure the beneficent starts of its institution.”
It's right there, clear as day. The bill of rights was solely written to explicitly deny any authority to the government on these matters.
And with the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, were an attempt to subvert any trickery on the government's part.
“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
It is once again clear that the Bill of Rights were not a comprehensive and exacting list of our "rights" but only a convenient list of absolute "back off" warnings to the government.
Instead our government, and our common ignorance has lost any understanding of true human rights. And laws are written in exacting ways to do everything but deny a tiny sliver of what the Bill of Rights intended.
The Second Amendment was never meant to be the end all authority. WE WERE. And when it says "shall not be infringed" it so meant it, that it meant a million other issues the government had yet to conceive.
The Republic they laid out in the Constitution is a distant memory compared to this nation. Here, rights are priviliges, and human effort is considered a right. The government controls the people.
Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist no. 84;
“I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colourable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why for instance, should it be said, that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretence for claiming that power. They might urge with a semblance of reason, that the constitution ought not to be charged with the absurdity of providing against the abuse of an authority, which was not given, and that the provision against restraining the liberty of the press afforded a clear implication, that a power to prescribe proper regulations concerning it, was intended to be vested in the national government. This may serve as a specimen of the numerous handles which would be given to the doctrine of constructive powers, by the indulgence of an injudicious zeal for bills of rights.”
