6/20/2020

Second Amendment is inherently anti slavery

So believed abolitionist Lysander Spooner. 

This right "to keep and bear arms," implies the right to use them–as much as a provision securing to the people the right to buy and keep food, would imply their right also to eat it. But this implied right to use arms, is only a right to use them in a manner consistent with natural rights–as, for example, in defense of life, liberty, chastity, &c. . . . If the courts could go beyond the innocent and necessary meaning of the words, and imply or infer from them an authority for anything contrary to natural right, they could imply a constitutional authority in the people to use arms, not merely for the just and innocent purposes of defense, but also . . . robbery, or any other acts of wrong to which arms are capable of being applied. The mere verbal implication would as much authorize the people to use arms for unjust, as for just, purposes. But the legal implication gives only an authority for their innocent use. (Lysander Spooner, Unconstitutionality of Slavery, p. 66 ).

Further:

The right of a man "to keep and bear arms," is a right palpably inconsistent with the idea of his being a slave. (ibid, p. 97)

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