Let me be clear: I am not a fan of Bernie Sanders’ politics. I do not believe socialism is a good economic system, nor that it is compatible with the United States Constitution. However, I do agree in principle with one idea that Bernie Sanders symbolized: that the political system in the United States is corrupt and tilted in favor of the rich and politically powerful. While at first I was diametrically opposed with what Bernie Sanders stood for, I eventually gained a respect for the man and the movement that grew around him. I believe that many of his supporters are less true socialists and rather hold more anti-establishment ideals. I can definitely see why someone who claimed they were going to level the political playing field received so much support. Therefore I was a bit surprised when Bernie Sanders seemed to sell out and support Hillary Clinton as nominee of the Democratic Party. He had just spent many months painting her as everything he stood opposed to and then it was revealed that the Democratic National Committee conspired to ensure Hillary Clinton was their nominee. Having some time to ponder the situation, I’ve come to two conclusions.

Bernie is Doing What He Must

First, Bernie Sanders is being an extremely smart politician. If he had bucked the DNC and withheld his support for Hillary Clinton, he would be politically finished. The DNC is too powerful for him to stand against. His best chance at moving his political agenda forward was to ally with Hillary Clinton and give her his full support. In exchange, she claims she will adopt some of his ideals and the DNC will keep Bernie at the forefront of their party. Bernie is doing exactly what he needs to do to remain politically relevant. I can not blame him as a politician for doing what he is doing. He has worked to bring himself mainstream visibility in national politics and he wants to leverage that base of support the best way he can. However, Bernie supporters are not beholden to Hillary Clinton or the DNC. They can continue Bernie’s mission even if he can not currently do so himself. Obviously he can no longer tell his supporters to not vote for Hillary Clinton, but it doesn’t take much to read between the lines on how he really feels about her.

The problem with supporting Hillary Clinton is that no one can trust her any farther than they can throw her. Of course she says now that she will advocate the policies that Bernie Sanders promoted. She needs the votes of Bernie Sanders’ supporters to get elected! Like Barack Obama said in 2008, Hillary Clinton will say anything to get elected. But what happens after she gets elected? She will say and do anything it takes to keep political favor and reward those who helped get her elected, which if you believe Bernie Sanders, include a lot of Wall Street and big money donors. She is as just as likely to align with Republicans (as her husband did in the 90’s) if that will help her get re-elected or help her contributors. If I were a a Hillary Clinton supporter, I would be scared to death that she will keep any of the promises she is giving now – and so should Bernie Sanders supporters. There is nothing keeping her from dropping you like a bad habit if she gets elected. She won’t need you in the next election.

Bernie Sanders 2020?

My second conclusion is that for Bernie Sanders to ever have any chance at the presidency, Hillary Clinton can not be elected president this year. The reality for Bernie Sanders supporters is that the Senator is 75 years old. He would have already been the oldest president ever elected this year. Four years from now at 79 years old is realistically his last chance at becoming president. If Hillary Clinton or any Democratic Party member (Hillary Clinton might be impeached if she is elected president) is the president 4 years from now there’s no way Bernie Sanders will have an opportunity to run. Unless a Hillary Clinton presidency is an absolute train wreck of unprecedented proportions, he can’t honestly run against the party he supports. His only chance is for someone other than a Democratic Party member to be president in 2020 so he can mount a viable campaign. If you are a true Bernie Sanders supporter, electing Hillary Clinton will kill any chance he has of ever becoming president and she likely will suffocate his agenda to appease her big money supporters. A vote for Hillary Clinton is shooting yourself in the foot and also excusing the DNC shutting for out Bernie Sanders’ campaign and his supporters.

But Donald Trump!

Ok, I get it that you can not support Donald Trump. I’m not asking you to vote for him. In fact I’m not voting for him. There are ways besides voting for Trump to show that you are not satisfied with the establishment candidates in this presidential election. You also get an opportunity to punish the DNC for disenfranchising your vote.

The simplest thing you can do is vote for a third-party candidate of your choice. The most likely options are Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party and Jill Stein of the Green Party. The simple choice is that if you are more anti-establishment, Gary Johnson is your man and if you identify as a true socialist then Jill Stein better represents you. But do your own research to make your own conclusions. That being said, I will add that if any third party gets over 5% of the popular vote this election cycle, it gets them automatic ballot access in the next election plus significant federal funding which will start them on equal footing with the establishment parties. They can then put more resources towards campaigning instead of fighting tooth and nail to get on the ballots in all 50 states. Certainly having more political voices can only help us all, much like Sanders did in his presidential bid. The most popular third party candidate thus far is Gary Johnson, so if you want to help third parties get more viability, then a vote for Gary Johnson will be the most likely way to make that happen. If one third party can break the political glass ceiling, then it will pave the way for others as well.

If you honestly can not vote for a third party, then a write in vote is an option, but do note that write-in votes will not help any third-party gain viability. You could also not vote, but that is truly wasting your voice. The establishment parties are more than happy if you do not vote because then it means your vote simply doesn’t exist and they get to keep the status quo. A vote for a third party or even a write-in vote is an unmistakable message that you are not happy with the political establishment. A non-vote simply disappears and doesn’t really say anything at all. So whatever you do vote in some way, just not for Hillary Clinton.

A lot of you will say that a third-party vote is still a vote for Donald Trump. I respectfully disagree, but even if we accept this assumption, it is actually more helpful for Bernie Sanders if Trump were elected than Hillary Clinton. If Donald Trump is as bad as you think he is, then it makes it all the more likely that Bernie Sanders would be the Democratic Party nominee next election cycle. As a Bernie Sanders supporter, you believed that the best chance of defeating Trump was Bernie Sanders. If you believed it then, you must believe that one term of a Trump presidency will make it even more likely for Bernie Sanders to win the next election. Yes, I agree this option stinks, but you were robbed of your opportunity this election. If you want any chance at getting Bernie elected president, you may need to put up with 4 years of Donald Trump. If anything this is Hillary Clinton and the DNC’s fault so how can you reward them with your vote?

Who do You Really Believe in?

It simply comes down to this for Bernie Sanders supporters: what do you believe about Hillary Clinton? Do you believe what Barack Obama said in 2008 and what Bernie Sanders said in the primaries about her corruption and big money influences, or do you believe she will actually keep her word after she’s taken your vote? If you trusted your candidate back then, know that he is doing what he can as a politician to keep his influence by aligning with Hillary Clinton now, but that doesn’t mean you must. Send a message to the DNC that they can not get away with disenfranchising your vote and you will not support Hillary Clinton this election so that Bernie Sanders can have one last chance at becoming president next election.

It should be no surprise to anyone that the level of voter dissatisfaction with the candidates presented to us by the establishment parties is at an all-time high. A huge number of people do not want to vote for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. So what are they to do? An ever increasing number of people are considering voting for a third party candidate, but when discussing it with others, they start to doubt the validity of voting for a third party.

Sadly, the number one objection to voting for a third party is that people think they would be wasting their vote on a candidate that can’t win. With thinking like that, it virtually guarantees that no third party will ever become relevant and the political status quo will remain. How can a candidate ever get enough support to win if people are waiting first for everyone else to get on the bandwagon?

I’m sure you’ve all heard that if one person shares an idea with two people and those two people each tell two more people, and so on, that idea will spread very quickly. Mathematically speaking, this is called geometric (or exponential) growth. When doubling something each time, the math formula is based upon exponents of the number two, or in other words, the power of two. I bring it up now to end the narrative that a third party presidential candidate, specifically Gary Johnson, can not possibly win the presidential election and hopefully help convince people to vote their conscience and bring about political change in this country.

It’s Simple Math

For purposes of this exercise, let’s ignore the electoral college and simply surmise that it will take approximately 50 million votes to win in a three-way race (it would probably be closer to 47 million, but 50 is a nice round number). This assumes there would be about 130 million votes total, which would about equal the highest ever number of popular votes in a presidential election: the 131 million cast in 2008. Mathematically speaking, if we started with a single voter convincing two other voters, it would take only 25 “generations” of subsequent voters convincing other voters to reach over 67 million votes, far more than the 50 million needed. (The formula for computing the exponential sum of a number taken to a certain power is basically to calculate one power higher and subtract 1. So if 2²⁶ = 67,108,864, the sum of the powers of 2 up to the 25th power is 2²⁶ – 1.)

To put a timeframe around this calculation, what if we concluded that one voter could convince two other voters in a single day? Then it would only take 25 days to generate enough votes for a presidential candidate to win. If we slowed down the process and assumed it took two days to convince two voters, then that is still only 50 days needed to convince enough voters for a presidential win in a three-way race. Pushing the timeframe out to three days equals 75 days, which at the time of this writing is almost exactly the amount of time left before the election. That is plenty of time for enough people to become convinced to vote for any candidate, let alone one that already has growing popularity like Gary Johnson.

If you feel that convincing two voters every few days is not realistic, realize that we are not starting at one single voter. Gary Johnson received 1.2 million votes in 2012 (with ballot access in only 48 states) – the most ever for a Libertarian Party candidate. If we round down and make the starting point just 1 million voters, then it would only take 5 generations to reach 64 million votes, much more than the 50 million he would need. If we started with one million voters today, at the pace of convincing only two voters every week, that would only require five weeks. If we stretch that out to every two weeks, that would still be fast enough to get enough votes to win – with time to spare. Certainly persuading two voters over the course of a week or two must seem feasible.

Still not convinced? Consider these facts:

• Gary Johnson’s base of support has been growing steadily since he was officially nominated as the candidate of the Libertarian Party back on May 29th – over 12 weeks ago. As it became clear that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were to be the official candidates of the Republican and Democratic parties 4 and 5 weeks ago, interest in third party candidates including Gary Johnson increased significantly. Given the exponential growth possibilities, that is a lot of time passed in which voters may have already been convinced.
• If various polls are accurate (and they generally are skewed against third party candidates), with Gary Johnson approaching 15% of the vote, that is currently about 19 million out of 130 million votes. With that base of support, if those 19 million people each convinced just two other voters, that ALONE would be enough to go over the 50 million need to win in a three-way race.
• If Gary Johnson is allowed to participate in the presidential debates, a lot of potential voters could be convinced “spontaneously,” adding to the base of people who could convince other voters.
• Gary Johnson already has ballot access in all 50 states this election cycle. There’s no reason people won’t be able to vote for him if they so choose.
• What if one voter could convince three other voters? Suddenly, the number of generations shrink significantly. Assuming one voter to start, it would take just 15 generations to reach over 43 million votes, which is close to the rounded-up 50 million number needed (a 16th generation would reach over 129 million in theory). Assuming one million voters to start, it would only take 3 generations to reach 81 million votes, obviously well more than needed. At 19 million voters to start, convincing just three people each (a single generation) would be enough for 76 million votes, once again significantly more needed to win in a three-way race.
• In this day and age of social media, just how many other people can one person help convince? They don’t call it “going viral” for nothing. Suddenly, convincing just two or three other voters seems too easy. What if one voter could convince four or five other voters? Or more?

Now obviously, convincing someone to vote for a candidate isn’t a simple mathematical formula. It takes more than just merely telling someone about a candidate – although with the high negative numbers the two establishment candidates have this election cycle, it might not take all that much! This article is not proof that Gary Johnson is GOING to win. It simply is proof that it is entirely POSSIBLE for virtually anyone to get enough support to win a presidential election in a relatively short timeframe IF voters are willing to personally convince a few other voters. If we even allow for imperfect geometric growth on the power of two, there is plenty of time left at this point in this election cycle to convince enough voters for Gary Johnson to win outright, not to mention that this process has been going on for at least a few months and there is already momentum on his side.

You’ve Got to Do Your Part

Of course, convincing other voters requires people taking part in conversations and discourse – and that is the entire point! It does require some work and people need to be willing to put themselves out there a little bit. However, if you aren’t satisfied with the political status quo and want to effect substantive change, you need to put a little effort into it. If you feel like it is impossible to help a third party candidate win, that you can’t do much as one person, simply try to convince at least two other people to vote third party and make sure to tell them to each convince at least two other people. Feel free to share this article with them for emphasis. As this article shows, you might just start the ball rolling on real political change in this country. Even if you can’t vote yourself but you are politically inclined, as many teenagers and immigrants may be, you can help influence the votes of others. The two or more people you convince can start a tidal wave.

As I mentioned at the start of this article, when you are telling people about third party candidates like Gary Johnson, the first thing you’ll likely hear is that the person likes the idea of a third party candidate, but they don’t think they can actually win. Therefore they don’t want to waste their vote. Hopefully the information in article can be your first response to this objection and you can start to change a few minds. By using the Power of Two, it only takes a few people convincing a few other people and so on …

This is how the state of California and the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals view the free people they supposedly serve

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the 2nd Amendment does not protect the right of individuals to carry concealed weapons. Certainly I have much to say on the implications that this ruling has on our rights and freedoms. However, that is the low-hanging fruit. I prefer to look a little deeper. In reviewing the ruling, I think many people are overlooking the inherent elitism that the court ruling implies, possibly going as far to be called sexist, homophobic, and dare I say racist.

The basic crux of the matter at hand are that people in California are only legally allowed to carry concealed weapons if they are granted a permit. Part of being approved for this permit is dependent on the applicant proving that “good cause exists” for carrying a concealed weapon. Each county in California is allowed to define what exactly “good cause” means for the applicants in their jurisdiction. One of the counties in question, Yolo County, does not explicitly define “good cause,” but only gives examples of what they consider to be valid reasons to carry a concealed weapon:

Yes, you read the title correctly. Contrary to what most people think, the surprising truth is that within the context of the seemingly endless gun control debate, the Second Amendment simply doesn’t matter. It has virtually no relevance and most people who base gun control discussions around the Second Amendment are wasting their time. The Second Amendment even has very little significance in any conversations about the right to bear arms. Does this sound crazy? Good. I’ve got your attention and now we can really get to the core of the gun control discussion.

Many conversations around gun control completely miss (or ignore) some fundamental considerations regarding the concept of rights (including the right to bear arms) and the purpose and function of the Constitution. In reality I’m not surprised, as most people have no idea how the United States federal government is supposed to work. Nor do most people have a foundational understanding of their own rights and freedoms. I think it’s time to bring these considerations to the forefront because they are entirely relevant to so many other issues today beyond gun control.

What Exactly is the Second Amendment?

As I mentioned, most people frame the debate over gun control as a Second Amendment issue. Many who advocate for the right to bear arms call this a “Second Amendment right.” Others who support legal restrictions on private ownership of guns attempt to interpret the Second Amendment in a way that does not give individuals the right to bear arms. Regardless of their position, anyone who discusses the regulation of gun ownership in the context of the Second Amendment is fighting the wrong battle.

The fact is, while not exactly for the reasons they claim, people who assert the Second Amendment does not give us the right to bear arms are actually correct! The Second Amendment does not confer *any* rights whatsoever to anyone. People in support of private gun ownership are wrong to claim that the right to bear arms comes from the Second Amendment. So does this mean that the government can regulate gun ownership as it pleases? Not at all. This is because while the Second Amendment does not give us any rights, it does not mean those rights do not exist.

Given that most people are conditioned to regard the 2nd Amendment as the crux of the gun control debate, I’m guessing at this point you are a little confused. In order to understand the points I am about to make, let me start with a little history lesson. Our country as it exists today was founded on two documents: The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the United States of America.

On Rights and Government

The Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This now-famous statement forms the core of the American belief system:

• Every single individual is equal to all others, therefore no one person has authority over another.
• Our rights exist at the time of our birth; these rights are not granted to us by other people.
• Some of these rights (but not all of them) include our lives and the ability to protect it, plus our freedom to live our life the way we want.

I doubt I would find much argument on these concepts from anyone who believes in the American way of life. Yet I have found that many people do not fully understand the self-evident truth that rights are unalienable (or inalienable). This insight is absolutely crucial to a proper comprehension of how our government is supposed to function and what authority it has, if any, in the resolution of particular societal issues. The key concept to grasp about unalienable rights is that our rights do NOT come from other men or groups of men acting as a government. Our rights exist above and beyond the authority of government because they come from our creation. This is vitally important to understand because if we believe our rights come from other people, then we also believe our rights can be justifiably taken away by other people. In fact, if we believe our rights come from man, then in effect we believe they are not truly rights at all, but rather privileges.

This concept is immediately affirmed by the very next sentence in The Declaration of Independence. “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed …” This means that the purpose of government is to protect the rights of the people it governs. It does not say that the purpose of government is to create rights. It does not even say that the purpose of government is to govern rights. It says governments are instituted to secure rights. Additionally, the powers of government are only justified when it is granted by those who consent to be governed, which further bolsters the idea that the rights of the people are superior to any form of government.

The Declaration continues, “… That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it …” In other words, when a government begins to infringe on the rights of those it governs, the people have the authority to change the government or even completely abolish it. This statement could not make it any more clear that the rights of free people are not subject to the authority of government. If government was the arbitrator of rights, it could simply restrict the right of people to change their own government. However, this right (as all rights) doesn’t come from other men or any government. It is an unalienable right (as all rights are) that exists because we exist. We don’t need permission from anyone to exercise our rights since we are all equal and posses our rights naturally – no man or group of men has the authority to deny our rights. We the people are the master of our government, not the other way around.

Rights and The Supreme Law of the Land

The Constitution of the United States of America was not our first supreme law of the land. That was the Articles of Confederation, as hopefully most of you know! Once the United States had secured their independence from the king and government of Great Britain, the founding fathers then set about creating a new set of laws that would “form a more perfect Union” and “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” To be honest, the text of the Constitution beyond the preamble is pretty dry reading. It is not an inspirational document like The Declaration of Independence. Rather it is largely a rote definition of the internal processes of the federal government and its relationship to the independent states which it governs. Not until we get to the first ten amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, do we get back to the ideals that were first laid out in The Declaration.

Since many people have not studied the Constitution beyond the relatively boring mechanism of government they were taught in school, it should not be surprising that a lot of people believe the Bill of Rights are where our rights come from. However, as I explained in the previous section, The Declaration proclaims that our rights are natural. Our rights exist because we exist. They do not come from other men or groups of men acting as governments. So what is the point of the Bill of Rights if they don’t actually give us certain rights? Furthermore, if one thinks about it briefly, why wasn’t the Bill of Rights included in the original Constitution? Why did it need to be added during the ratification process and why did some people actually oppose the inclusion of the first ten amendments? Bear with me for a little more discussion of history and the Constitution.

If one reads Article I of the Constitution, Section 1 states that “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States …” If we remember what The Declaration of Independence said, all just powers of government come from the consent of the governed. In other words, government can ONLY justifiably do what the people allow it to do. So Article I, Section 1 codifies this into law by stating that all regulatory (legislative) authority herein granted will be entrusted with the Congress. It does not say “all legislative powers” shall be vested, it states “all legislative Powers herein granted …” This implies that a listing of powers to be granted from the people is forthcoming and those will be the only limited and specific authorities government will posses. Continuing reading through Article I, the next several sections detail how Congress will function internally until we get to Article I, Section 8, which finally does state what the specific powers of Congress shall be. I won’t reprint the entire text of Article I, Section 8 here, but please do go and read it for yourself. While you read it, keep in mind what The Declaration of Independence said about the just powers of government coming from the consent of the governed, but also consider what the point of delineating a specific set of authorities would be. If the intent of the Constitution was to merely give Congress the power to pass any law it wanted, why not simply state that? Why list a particular set of powers “herein granted”?

The simple answer is that government arbitrarily taking more power for itself through legislation would be counter to the ideals of freedom and liberty the country was founded upon. Not only that, but if a government can simply grant itself more authority, then it essentially becomes a government of unlimited power and one that can easily oppress the rights of the people without accountability. In essence, government would have the power to vote away people’s rights, making the country a place where the powerful can rule over the less powerful, the majority could rule the minority, and tyranny would reign instead of freedom.

The Authority to Regulate Gun Ownership?

Now that you’ve read the text of Article I, Section 8, are you able to point out where the federal government is given the authority to regulate private ownership of anything, let alone guns? There is no mention of the word gun, weapon, arms, or ownership anywhere in the text of Article I, Section 8. So given the previous understanding of the ideals set forth by the Declaration of Independence and Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution, how can one justifiably argue that the federal government has any authority to regulate the right to bear arms?

Some people might argue that the “interstate commerce clause” allows the federal government to regulate the sale of guns. In theory, as long as lawmakers show any kind of correlation between an activity and interstate commerce, then they can claim authority to pass legislation regulating that activity. Similarly, others may argue that the “necessary and proper clause” also gives government the power to regulate the right the bear arms. As before, if lawmakers can figure out how to rationalize something into being “necessary and/or proper,” then they can justify taking the power to pass certain laws. The discussion over explicit vs implied authority in the Constitution is a long standing one and a full discussion of which would be well outside the scope of this article. If you want to read some more of my thoughts on this topic, I wrote an article that discusses how the abuse of the commerce clause in essence gives the federal government the power to regulate nearly anything it wants. However, to make a very simple analogy, consider the “Kevin Bacon game.” If you aren’t familiar with it, this is a simple party game where the players basically try to “link” actors to Kevin Bacon through the movies they appeared in. Ask anyone who has played the game and they’ll tell you that virtually every actor and actress in Hollywood can be linked to Kevin Bacon if you work at it hard enough. Similarly, crafty politicians can basically link anything to interstate commerce or deem it “necessary and proper” through questionable legal and mental gymnastics. The bottom line is that if you want to argue that the commerce or necessary and proper clauses give the federal government the power to regulate guns, then you are arguing that the federal government has the power to regulate everything and anything. This is certainly not what the founding fathers intended and it is likely not what you (or anyone who believes in freedom) would actually prefer to be true.

Again, the discussion of implied powers deserves its own space. But for purposes of this discussion if you would be willing to concede that the question of federal authority over the right to bear arms through the commerce or necessary and proper clauses is at least not clear-cut, we can continue. Stipulating this, there is literally nothing within Article I, Section 8 that gives the federal government the authority to regulate the private ownership of guns. Before you ask, there is no other section of the Constitution that gives regulatory authority to congress or any other branch of government, and no text within the Constitution or the amendments even mention the words gun, weapon, or arms (save for the Second Amendment). So with that in mind, consider the creation of the Bill of Rights and the process behind its ratification.

The Bill of Guarantees

Given the very limited set of powers defined in Article I, Section 8, the original framers of the Constitution saw no reason to include a listing of what rights were to be protected against government tyranny. How could a government lawfully infringe upon someone’s rights when they had no just power to do so? However, others saw it differently. They did not trust that the newly formed federal government would stay within their legal bounds and wanted further protection for their natural rights from the centralized power the Constitution would create. This idea seems fairly self-evident today, but there were actually people opposed to an enumeration of rights being listed in the Constitution. This wasn’t because they were opposed to protecting those rights, but rather because they thought that by listing certain rights, people would eventually believe that those were the only rights protected from government infringement. Additionally, they also felt that people would mistakenly be convinced that those rights were granted by government. In other words, they actually felt the Bill of Rights could be dangerous to our natural rights.

In an effort to satisfy the concern of those who thought this way, the Ninth Amendment specifically states, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” In other words, rights that are not listed do in fact exist and are also protected against government infringement. Furthermore, the Tenth Amendment declares that “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.” This amendment strongly reinforces the idea that the federal government is only a government of specific and limited powers. If a power is not granted to the federal government in the Constitution, this amendment states in no uncertain terms that the authority lies with the states or with the people. This is also further proof that the commerce clause as well as the necessary and proper clause were not intended to offer arbitrary implied powers to the federal government. Once again, what would be the point of having so many specific limitations on authority if the actual intent was to allow government to simply legislate itself more power any time it pleased?

Let’s bring this history lesson back full circle. It should be evident by now that the point of the Second Amendment was not to grant us the right to bear arms, but “merely” to be an additional protection against the government possibly infringing that right. It is an attempt at guaranteeing that this right would be free from government tyranny. In essence, it states that if a lawmaker were so inclined to ignore the fact that there is no authority in Article I, Section 8 for the federal government to regulate the private ownership of guns, the Second Amendment acts as another barrier to such oppression. To this end it would be more proper to call the Bill of Rights the “Bill of Guarantees” since that is a more concise description of its function.

It’s Not Really About Guns

So back to my original assertion, I contend that arguing about the Second Amendment is truly an exercise in futility. No matter how one feels about the interpretation of the Second Amendment, whatever conclusion one draws does not trump the fact that nothing in Article I, Section 8 grants the federal government the authority to regulate the private ownership of guns. The Second Amendment could vanish and the federal government would still not have the authority to regulate the right to bear arms. Even if one is to argue that implied powers does give the federal government the authority to regulate the right to bear arms, the discussion must begin in Article I, Section 8. Therefore, Article I, Section 8 should be the core of the discussion about gun control. The Second Amendment can rightly be thought of as window dressing in most gun control discussions.

To that end, the conversation about Article I, Section 8 and the rightful authority of government is about far more than gun ownership. In order to satisfy the ideal in The Declaration of Independence that governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed, we must ensure that any new law or regulation considered by our government is based upon powers that government has been lawfully granted. Yes, this includes gun control but truly any regulation should be subject to this same scrutiny. In this country, we can not legally pass a law that is outside the authority granted to congress by the Constitution. To do so is the very definition of unconstitutional. So even if a popular majority supported a particular form of gun control, short of the passage of a new Amendment, enacting such a law would be not only unconstitutional, but a violation of the principles this country was founded upon.

To ignore Article I, Section 8 is to ignore the spirit of limited government. It is to completely disregard The Declaration of Independence. It is to look right past the idea that we are born with natural unalienable rights and that government is created in order to secure those rights. It turns the concept of the government as the people’s servant on its head and instead allows government the power to make itself the master. The bottom line is that if we can rationalize the willful violation of a core ideal of liberty in the name of gun control, we can rationalize oppressing any and all of our freedoms for any purpose that is politically expedient.

The Second Amendment is irrelevant. Except when it isn’t.

With all that being said, I will now contradict the premise of my own article. While the Second Amendment is technically redundant and I’ve just argued that it truly does not matter in the context of the discussion of the right to bear arms, I am certainly glad that those who were ratifying the Constitution had enough foresight to include it along with the rest of the Bill of Rights. It has become clearly evident that our federal government has willfully ignored the limitations of power imposed on it by Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. The additional safeguards that the Bill of Rights put in place may have been the only thing standing in the way of further government overreach. However, as we now see, even those safeguards are in danger of being overrun. It seems that hardly anyone is familiar with the Ninth or Tenth Amendments and the First and Second Amendments have been methodically worked around by ambitious politicians and government bureaucrats. We must work harder to demand that our elected officials abide by the supreme law of the land in order to draw down government abuse of power. While the Bill of Rights and the Second Amendment are intended to guarantee that certain rights be free from government infringement, if we continue to ignore the limitations that Article I, Section 8 imposes on the federal government it is only a matter of time before overzealous politicians figure out a way to completely override our most precious freedoms. We must focus on the root of the problem and rein in the unjust and unconstitutional power of government or else the Second Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights will truly become irrelevant.