States and communities getting push back from citizens on gun store shut downs

Anti-gun politicians have used the COVID 19 pandemic as an excuse to shut down gun stores as nonessential.  Andrea Widburg has the story at the American Thinker entitled States and local communities are using coronavirus to shut down gun stores. I would note though that a number of governors and sheriffs have had their ears pinned back since that story was written. For instance, Los Angeles County Sheriff

Alex Villanueva reversed course early Wednesday morning and now says his office is suspending attempts to force firearm retailers to lock their doors.

Villaneuva announced the move on social media, saying it will be up to Gov. Gavin Newsom to determine what is, and isn’t, an essential business.

And Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf has been slapped by the Supreme Court and forced to back track on his order to close gun stores. Widburg notes that:

For this reason, the first ten amendments to the Constitution do not define government power; they limit it. And more importantly, they limit it, not by having the government graciously extend a few privileges to America’s citizens, privileges that the government can as easily revoke, but instead by stating rights that individuals automatically possess without regard to the government’s powers.

The second of these amendments – one of only two amendments dedicated exclusively to a single principle – refers to every citizen’s inherent (not government-granted, but inherent) right to possess arms:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

If the Second Amendment were written in modern English, the Founders might have phrased it this way:

The only way citizens can defend themselves against a tyrannical government is to create their own army (which, obviously, is separate from the government’s army). The people, therefore, have an overarching and innate right to have guns, and the government may not interfere with that right.

Our right to arms for defense of our selves and our families is never more important than at a time when things can rapidly turn ugly. Widburg correctly notes that the right to arms is an inherent right, not a government grant, and that the right may not be revoked at the stroke of a pen. The anti-federalists were right to insist on putting this into the Constitution as a price for their acquiescence to it, because it makes it much easier to defend.