Which Amendment is Worth ‘The Children’?

By Christopher Skeet

After every mass shooting (particularly the vast majority upon which white supremacy cannot be blamed), leftists renew demands to repeal the Second Amendment as part of their Do Something!!! campaign, and this past month’s evil in Uvalde was no exception.
 
Discussing gun control options with the eunuch class members of the press, President Biden quipped, “You couldn’t buy a cannon when the Second Amendment was passed.  You couldn’t go out and purchase a lot of weaponry.”  He continued: “It makes no sense to be able to purchase something that can fire up to 300 rounds.  The idea of these high caliber weapons – there’s simply no rational basis for it in terms of, about self-protection, hunting – and, remember, the Constitution, the Second Amendment was never absolute.”
 
In four sentences he told five lies, which is impressive even for him. But these five lies are central to the anti-gun argument, so I’ll briefly expound:
 

• “You couldn’t buy a cannon…”  Actually, you could.  In both the absence of a standing army, and in the war against the British, private American militias procured cannons at their own expense.
• “You couldn’t go out and purchase a lot of weaponry.”  Actually, you could.  There were never any colonial laws limiting the number of guns or amount of ammunition you could purchase.
• “It makes no sense to be able to purchase something that can fire up to 300 rounds”.  This would be news to gun owners, as no ammunition magazine holds anywhere near that amount.  The standard magazine capacity for an AR-15 is thirty rounds.
• “…there’s simply no rational basis for it in terms of, about self-protection, hunting…”  The Second Amendment offers no such basis.  The purpose of the Second Amendment isn’t for self-protection or for hunting.  The purpose of the Second Amendment is in its “being necessary to the security of a free State.”  And for that purpose, there is an overwhelming rational basis, of which Joe Biden is Exhibit One.
• “…the Constitution, the Second Amendment was never absolute.”  Actually, it is.  Amendments can be overturned, and Biden is free to try.  But until then, the Constitution and its amendments are not subject to change at the whim of the mob.  They are the absolute foundation from which all our laws derive.  That’s the whole point.

 
Joe Biden has never needed  to own a gun for self-protection or otherwise, seeing as he was able to defang the mighty Corn Pop utilizing nothing but the ol’ Scranton One-Two.  But for the sake of argument, let’s assume that Biden is able to either 1) get the Second Amendment overturned or, 2) forum shop to get an anti-gun ruling by a favorable court, appellate court, or the Supreme Court.  This would all no doubt be conducted in the name of “public safety,” or “protecting our children,” etc.  The Constitution and its Amendments, we are told, are ossified relics of white supremacy.
 
But if that’s the case, why stop there?  In the interests of “protecting our children,” why not re-imagine, as they say, additional amendments?  As these mass shooters are attempting to create as much carnage as possible publicity, why not deny them this by revoking the freedom of the press under the First Amendment?  How many children would be protected by criminalizing the publication of any information about mass shooters, their backgrounds, their motives, their manifestos, indeed even any information about the crime itself?  How many would-be mass shooters would be dissuaded by the knowledge that the world will never know what they did?
 
If only our nation had a free and independent press, you can imagine the howls of outrage such a move would elicit.  But what’s more important to the court jesters at CNN and MSNBC?  Smearing their juicy school shooter stories across their screens?  Or “protecting the children”?  If “protecting the children” takes precedence over the Second Amendment, shouldn’t it also take precedence over the First Amendment?
 
How about the Fourth Amendment, which protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures, and requires a warrant for searches of homes?  Well, what is “unreasonable”?  If our goal is to “protect the children,” wouldn’t any search be reasonable?  Imagine if police had the authority to enter the homes and cars of known gang members and criminals, at any time and without warning, to conduct random weapons searches.  How many children and other innocents would be alive today in Chicago, New York, Detroit, etc., if we jettisoned the Fourth Amendment and gave them this authority?  And if you oppose this, does this mean you hate children?  Especially children of “color,” who fall victim to gang violence more than children of, er, non-color?  Are you complicit in their murders?  What’s more important to you, the antiquated relic of English law known as a warrant, or “protecting the children”?
 
Rational Americans, both left and right, can agree that the legal system is broken (albeit for different reasons).  Can our current deadlock not be traced back to the Bill of Rights?  The Fifth Amendment guarantees due process.  The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right of the accused to counsel.  The Seventh Amendment guarantees a right to trial by jury.  These Amendments form the legal standards upon which the State is burdened and are intentionally difficult to overcome, and are a reflection of the idea that it would be better to potentially let criminals free than it would be to wrongly imprison a single innocent person.
 
But these Amendments prioritize the individual over the overall safety of the collective.  And if the Left wants to reverse this prioritization, does it not stand to reason that these amendments are obsolete inhibitors to a better society?  Why should the accused have so many safeguards?  The truly innocent, if indeed they be of noble and “woke” character, will gladly accept the burden of proving their bona fides…just like they do in corporate anti-racism workshops, in public schools, and on Twitter.  And if a few innocents do get imprisoned with the criminals?  Meh.  To paraphrase the New York Times’ Walter Duranty’s defense of the Ukrainian genocide, you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.  What’s more important?  The fate of a few so-called innocents, or “protecting the children”?
 
What about the Eighth Amendment, which protects against both excessive bail and against cruel and unusual punishment?  Many leftist DAs are trying to eliminate bail altogether.  But in the interests of “public safety” and “protecting the children”, shouldn’t we instead push for excessive bail?  And why not inflict cruel and unusual punishment?  If you apply the punishment a certain number of times, it ceases to be “unusual” and becomes “usual.”  And wouldn’t so-called “cruel” punishment, if applied unsparingly and uniformly to every violent criminal, not deter others?  If criminals realized that their crimes would be answered not by the usual slap on the wrist, but by being drawn and quartered in a public square, would this not drastically reduce crime?  Is not “public safety” and “protecting the children” worth it?

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