When the Ninth Circuit ruled that Americans have no right to carry a concealed handgun outside the home, they were effectively alienating an “unalienable” right.
It would have been no different had they said Americans have no right to free speech or freedom of religion outside the home (First Amendment), or that Americans have no right “to be secure in persons” outside the home (Fourth Amendment), and so on. Every right in the Bill of Rights is “unalienable,” which means that every right in the Bill of Rights is intrinsic to our humanity. In fact, to separate such rights from us is to put a separation between us and what it means to be human.
Thomas Jefferson, a Founding Father and the third President of the United States, based colonial separation from Britain on the fact that “unalienable” rights are woven into the fabric of our beings by our “Creator,” rather than by government. He made this emphasis in the Declaration of Independence, where he wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”
by AWR Hawkins
