As the Founding Fathers knew well, a government that does not trust its honest, law-abiding, taxpaying citizens with the means of self-defense is not itself worthy of trust. Laws disarming honest citizens proclaim that the government is the master, not the servant, of the people. A federal law along the lines of the Florida statute — overriding all contradictory state and local laws and acknowledging that the carrying of firearms by law-abiding citizens is a privilege and immunity of citizenship — is needed to correct the outrageous conduct of state and local officials operating under discretionary licensing systems.
Jeff Snyder
2001
Nation of Cowards page 30
[This essay was originally published in 1993 by The Public Interest.
What he says we needed 25 years ago, while closer than ever before, is still not a reality. Let’s keep pushing and get this item checked off our list.—Joe]
“the carrying of firearms by law-abiding citizens is a privilege”
Maybe I mis-read this, or didn’t catch some context, but bearing arms is a right, not a privilege.
I’m pretty sure the context is the 14th Amendment, which, in part says:
I believe he was trying to make it clear, from a strictly legal standpoint, discretionary licensing is unconstitutional.
In WW2 after the July 20 1944 attempt on Hitler’s life, his inner circle was even stricter searching people before they had an audience with Hitler. Erich Hartmann, the top ace and “Blond Knight of Germany” refused to surrender his pistol, saying that if Herr Hitler doesn’t want him with his pistol, he didn’t want his medal.