CNN’s Chris Cuomo: 2nd Amendment Didn’t Mean ‘Individual Right’ to Bear Arms ‘Until Scalia Read It In’

CNN’s Chris Cuomo used a tweet Thursday to suggest the Second Amendment only protected a collective right until Supreme Justice Antonin Scalia read an “individual right” into it.

Cuomo tweeted:

Do you remember what the 2a was created for? That there was no individual right contemplated until Scalia read it in? If you are an originalist about the constitution you have no basis for thinking you and not the state controls access. https://t.co/j5IAC3NTMZ

— Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) August 8, 2019

Notice the last sentence of Cuomo’s tweet, “If you are an originalist about the constitution you have no basis for thinking you and not the state control access.” He is saying because the Second Amendment only protects a collective right, in his opinion, then the true originalist position is to believe you only have guns if the state says so.

Cuomo did not say whether freedom of speech and religion (First Amendment), the freedom to pursue and possess private property (Third Amendment), and to be secure in our “persons, houses, papers, and effects” (Fourth Amendment) is collective as well. In other words, do we need state permission to speak freely, worship freely, do with our things as we would, and enjoy security in papers and effects?

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.