Edited by Ghost1958
A Bill to Protect the Right to Keep and Bear Arms from Infringement by Local and State Governments
An effort is afoot again to protect individuals from one State having their Right to Keep and Bear Arms from being infringed by another. This effort takes the form of a proposed federal law requiring all States to recognize the firearm licenses of another. There are two main flaws with such a scheme:
One, a Right cannot be licensed. Licenses are, by definition, permission being granted by the government for an individual to act in a given way. Rights, by definition, are acts that an individual can take regardless of government will. Therefore, a Right cannot be licensed! Any act by any government creating or promoting licensure, no matter how liberal, cannot be, by definition, a protection of a Right.
Two, that which the government undertakes to permit, it may chose to prohibit. When we think that allowing government to allow us to act in a given way, we are accepting their authority over that action. That necessarily means that we allow them to prohibit the activity.
For these reasons, this Second Amendment activist opposes so-called national reciprocity bills. If the federal government wants to protect citizens of all States from State and local infringements on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, they need to follow the example of State pre-emption laws and pass laws proscribing governmental behavior that infringes on the Right.
To that end, I would propose this alternative to national reciprocity. (I am not a lawyer, so look to the intent of this proposal. Someone with legal writing skills could always repair the flaws.)
The Bill: Edited by a Ghost1958
Whereas the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States protects the Individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms from infringement, without specifying what entities may not infringe, thereby enjoining all governmental entities from so infringing.]