Foldvary is the author of The Soul of Liberty, Public Goods and Private Communities, and Dictionary of Free Market Economics. And to those who believe that the Constitution means what it says, the essence of this debate is not about the law; it is about personal liberty in a free society. The entire book is … Also, during the hearing, Sotomayor said she did not know if there was a personal right to self-defense. That act of secession, the American Revolution, was largely successful because close to half of the colonists were armed and did not fear the use of weaponry. Is it any wonder that by Yorktown in 1781, the king and the Parliament had lost enough men and treasure to surrender? That is why it is disturbing that judge Sotomayor did not answer the question in the affirmative. Indeed, very few people understand that there exists a universal ethic that applies to humanity and that is its moral imperative. They are implied in the right to bear arms, but more fundamentally, the right to self-defense is a natural and common-law right recognized by the Ninth Amendment to the US Constitution. Listen to this article in MP3, read by Jeff Riggenbach. ©2020 FOX News Network, LLC. To those who have killed innocents among us, obedience to law is the last of their thoughts. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. So evidently, she believes there are 9th Amendment rights, but does not know if self-defense is a right. The right of self defense is the right for a person to use reasonable force to defend himself, his property, or the lives of others. If necessary, the use of deadly force can be permitted, depending on the circumstances. She said she could not think of a Supreme Court case on that issue. and Ph.D. in economics from George Mason University. In 2004, judge Sotomayor stated that "the right to possess a gun is clearly not a fundamental right." ©2020 FOX News Network, LLC. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. Tags. Perhaps she did not want to venture into the right to bear arms, but the right to self-defense is much greater than the gun issue. It cannot morally or constitutionally be taken away absent individual consent or due process. The president and his big-government colleagues want you to believe that only the government can keep you free and safe, so to them, the essence of this debate is about obedience to law. Scholars and government officials almost immediately began to parse its terms for exceptions and arguments expanding the right to use force. You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter! One can defend oneself by many other means. The Right to Self-defense. President Trump famously does so using social media. Thank you! Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. One of the secrets of the Revolution -- one not taught in public schools today -- is that the colonists actually had superior firepower to the king. This moral ignorance ultimately leads to tyranny, oppression, and at the extreme, mass murder. It is what gives substance to the right to life. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel. they do not come from government but are inherent in humanity. By referring to state law, she implied that she was ignoring the Ninth Amendment. Legal Statement. Unlike toasters, human babies do not come with instructions. Self-defense is often more than protecting only physical safety. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley, and his M.A. Pejorative but highly subjective labels like “Hate Spee… The first amendment to the Constitution in the Bill of Rights prohibits the government from stifling our speech. Inside information on economics, society, nature, and technology. But the colonists had the long gun -- sometimes called the "Kentucky" or the "Tennessee" -- which propelled a single steel ball about 200 yards, nearly four times as far as the British could shoot. Now the right to self-defense is the right to use force to protect life. That amendment in the Bill of Rights says that the US Constitution recognizes rights held by the people even if they are not listed in the Constitution. But if rights exist, how can self-defense from harm possibly not be a right? In all the noise caused by the Obama administration’s direct assault on the right of every person to keep and bear arms, the essence of the issue has been drowned out. We cannot let a popular majority take it away, for the tyranny of the majority can be as destructive to freedom as the tyranny of a madman. The anti-Second Amendment crowd cannot point to a single incident in which curtailing the freedom of law-abiding Americans has stopped criminals or crazies from killing. Legal System Philosophy and Methodology Private Property. The right to self-defense is a natural individual right that pre-exists the government. Oops! The right to defend oneself against threats is a natural right, implied by a natural law, what the philosopher John Locke called a “law of nature.”. We cannot let ourselves fall down this slippery slope. They may be mentioned, but they are not clearly explained. But if natural rights exist, then surely self-defense must be included, indeed as the supreme right. All rights reserved. Thomas Jefferson understood that when he wrote that our liberties are inalienable and endowed by our Creator, and the only reason we have formed governments is to engage them to protect our liberties. Few have learned about a natural moral law derived from premises based on human nature. Foldvary's areas of research include public finance, governance, ethical philosophy, and land economics. The lesson here is that free people cannot remain free by permitting the government -- even a popularly elected one that they can unelect -- to take their freedoms away. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. When the Second Amendment was written and added to the Constitution, the use of guns in America was common. Get the recap of top opinion commentary and original content throughout the week. By its nature, government is the negation of liberty. They are implied in the right to bear arms, but more fundamentally, the right to self-defense is a natural and common-law right recognized by the Ninth Amendment to the US Constitution. He received his B.A. He was able to do so due to his extensive knowledge of the real-estate cycle. Hence they exist prior to the Constitution as common-law and natural-law rights. With most states in the world as parties, the Charter became the authoritative document on self-defense. God has given us freedom, and the government has taken it away. FRED E. FOLDVARY, Ph.D., is an economist and has been writing weekly editorials for Progress.org since 1997. Al Haq and PCHR falsely claim that Israel cannot invoke self-defense in response to attacks from non-state actors in occupied territory. That can’t be right, and the Washington Court of Appeals said it wasn’t right. They really do not know what rights are included in those “others” that are recognized and protected by that amendment. Most people believe that morality has a religious origin, or that it should be based on tradition, or that it is an arbitrary socially-constructed convention. We enacted the Constitution as the supreme law of the land to restrain the government. He edited and contributed to Beyond Neoclassical Economics and, with Dan Klein, The Half-Life of Policy Rationales. So the problem is not the views of a particular judge, but the problem of human being not understanding the moral law that flows from their own human nature. The right of self-defense was codified in the Charter of the United Nations. It is the exercise of this particular personal liberty -- the freedom to defend yourself when the police cannot or will not and the freedom to use weapons to repel tyrants if they take over the government -- that the big-government crowd fears the most. We don’t like spam either: you can unsubscribe anytime. or redistributed. I know that sounds ridiculous, but that’s where we are today. 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