(December 20, 2012 at 7:52 pm)Napoléon Wrote: What is it that gives someone 'the right to bear arms'?
I'd rather not get into the whole founding fathers/constitution/fighting oppressive governments crap (unless that really is the reason you think you're entitled to bear arms, because your government says so).
I know that you wanted an answer from the moral perspective, but I'm not going to give that to you in this post. I'm going to concentrate on the constitutional perspective, because that is the only real answer to your question of, "What is it that gives someone the right to bear arms."
If you need a moral answer, you'll need to ask your question differently or ask a different question.
Quite frankly and obviously, the Second Amendment gives U.S. citizens the right to bear arms. If you are interested in the Founders' reasons for creating the Second Amendment, you will need to reference the Federalist Papers and other such documents to see what the Founders were thinking. You will have to understand their thoughts and reasoning within the context of their time and their life experiences. Humans have not really evolved much (if at all) since that time, therefore, human nature is the same now as it was back then. Therefore, in my opinion, their reasoning back then is still valid in today's modern times.
U.S. citizens have the right to bear arms for the purpose of fighting of an oppressive and tyrannical government. So far, our government has not become completely oppressive or tyrannical. That is probably because we the people have arms.
The core philosophy behind the Second Amendment is that, if the People (as a whole) do not have access to arms, they will become weakened and enslaved by the government (aka, the elites and those who have the power and money).
If we look at where we are today, we can see a lot of government corruption (the corporations have taken over many facets of government and our government as it exists today does not fight for us, but rather, for the elites (i.e. corporations and international wealth holders) who have infiltrated it via the Revolving Door, campaign contributions, long-term slow but deliberate manipulations of the law, and on and on the list goes).
If this trend continues, and we are disarmed as a people, that will be the last straw to our complete enslavement. The erosion of our liberties will accelerate and soon we will be subjects to our government instead of citizens within it.
This may seem to be an old-fashioned and out-dated argument from hundreds of years ago; but it still holds. It is a simple one, but one that reflects the unfortunate truths about human nature: that we are prone to greed. That when unfettered greed corrupts human beings, they will do whatever it takes to hold onto their power and grow it at the expense of everything and everyone, no matter the cost.
It takes raw force to oppose that level of evil.
