During his January 5 speech expanding background checks to cover more private sellers, President Obama made a startling admission: he believes the Second Amendment does indeed guarantee a right for individuals to keep and bear arms.
He even backed up this assertion by referencing his tenure of teaching in the university. Obama said, “I taught constitutional law, I know a little bit about this — I get it.”
This may come as a shock to leftists at the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and other outlets that have been working feverishly to push the belief that an individual’s right to keep and bear arms did not exist until 2008, when it was created via the Supreme Court’s (SCOTUS) District of Columbia v. Heller decision. The LA Times maintains that SCOTUS “erred,” and the NYT contends that our Founding Fathers never meant to protect an individual right.
Both publications are trying to preserve enough questions around the idea of an individual right that a future SCOTUS–one that is further left than the one we have now–will revisit the issue and explain that the Second Amendment only protects a right for people serving in the militia.
Yet Obama expressed his conviction that Americans have the right to own guns, period. According to The Washington Post, Obama said, “I believe in the Second Amendment. It is there, written on the paper. It guarantees a right to bear arms. No matter how many times people try to twist my words around — I taught constitutional law, I know a little bit about this — I get it.”
Does this mean we do not need to urge Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) to wake up and fight Obama’s use of executive actions for gun control? Certainly not; we must urge our senators and representatives to fight the executive overreach with all their might. But it does mean that the silver lining in this dark gray cloud is Obama’s admission that the Second Amendment does indeed protect Americans’ right to bear arms.
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
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