The Second Amendment Has Always Been An Individual Right by David Harsanyi

The Second Amendment Has Always Been An Individual Right by David Harsanyi

The notion of individual ownership of firearms was so unmistakable and so omnipresent in colonial days—and beyond—that Americans saw no more need to debate its existence than they did the right to drink water or breathe the air.

It's nice to have a bit of common sense truth spelled out so clearly.

The enduring miracle of the American Constitution by Charles Krauthammer

The enduring miracle of the American Constitution by Charles Krauthammer

Many things are miraculous about the U.S. Constitution. The first is that, somehow, on this edge of the civilized world two and a half centuries ago, there could have been a collection of such political geniuses as to have actually written it.
The second miracle is the substance of it — the way that the founders, drawing from Locke and Montesquieu and the Greeks, created an extraordinary political apparatus that to this day still works and that has worked with incredible success for nearly a quarter of a millennium.

Our beloved Krauthammer will be sorely missed for exactly this kind of wisdom and insight.

The Second(-Class) Amendment by John Yoo & James C. Phillips

The Second(-Class) Amendment by John Yoo & James C. Phillips
Editor’s Note: The following is the fourth in a series of articles in which Mr. Yoo and Mr. Phillips will lay out a course of constitutional restoration, pointing out areas where the Supreme Court has driven the Constitution off its rails and the ways the current Court can put it back on track. The first entry is available here, the second here, and the third here.

But just as we argued earlier with privacy, the true constitutional source for a right to bear arms comes through the 14th Amendment’s privileges and immunities clause. The radical Republicans believed that one of slavery’s great sins was its deprivation of the basic natural rights of blacks: to think and speak for themselves, to keep the fruits of their labors, to participate in political life as full citizens, and to defend their lives and property, just as any other human being could. In drafting the privileges and immunities clause, Reconstruction congressmen argued that it would override the South’s laws that had prohibited blacks from bearing arms and defending themselves. Rather than give in to the liberal enterprise of inventing rights from whole cloth, the new Roberts Court could more faithfully ground the right to bear arms by honoring the understandings of the Republicans who freed the slaves and fought to enshrine their equal rights in the Constitution.

Very interesting argument from the 14th Amendment "privileges and immunities" clause that would tie pre-existing natural rights to Constitutionally guaranteed rights.

The New Supreme Court and Privacy Jurisprudence by John Yoo & James C. Phillips

The New Supreme Court and Privacy Jurisprudence by John Yoo & James C. Phillips
Editor’s Note: The following is the third in a series of articles in which Mr. Yoo and Mr. Phillips will lay out a course of constitutional restoration, pointing out areas where the Supreme Court has driven the Constitution off its rails and the ways the current Court can put it back on track. The first entry is available here, the second here.

For the last half century, the Left has turned to the Supreme Court to win what it could not in the normal political process. The Court has embedded the sexual revolution into the Constitution and “found” new progressive rights for privacy and dignity, as well as protections against animus, in a document that mentions none of the above. Conservatives should not seek to overturn Roe because they are obsessed with abortion; they should demand its reversal because it represents a politicization of the Supreme Court and an abuse of the Constitution to short-circuit democracy in the service of the latest left-wing ideals of the day.

Yoo and Phillips argue that the court should get out of the way of defining nebulous rights and let the people have their say in their local bodies.

Birthright Citizenship and Dual Citizenship: Harbingers of Administrative Tyranny by Edward J. Erler

Birthright Citizenship and Dual Citizenship: Harbingers of Administrative Tyranny by Edward J. Erler

Thus there are two components to American citizenship: birth or naturalization in the U.S. and being subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. We have somehow come today to believe that anyone born within the geographical limits of the U.S. is automatically subject to its jurisdiction. But this renders the jurisdiction clause utterly superfluous and without force.

Very interesting take on the "birth-right citizenship" debate.