You won’t be shocked to learn what the New York Times thinks of laws allowing citizens to carry their guns in public.

As a last little gift to America, Senator George Allen, who was narrowly defeated by James Webb this month, has introduced what may be his final piece of legislation: a bill that would allow the carrying of concealed weapons in national parks. The argument behind the bill is that national park regulations unfairly strip many Americans of a right they may enjoy outside the parks. The bill has passed to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, where we hope it will die the miserable death it deserves.

America’s confusion about the Second Amendment is now nearly total. An amendment that ensures a collective right to bear arms has been misread in one legislature after another — often in the face of strong public disapproval — as a law guaranteeing an individual’s right to carry a weapon in public. And, in a perversion of monumental proportions, the battle to extend that right has largely succeeded in co-opting the language of the Civil Rights movement, so that depriving an American of the right to carry a gun in public sounds, to some, as offensive as stripping him of the right to vote.

What’s funny about that last bit is that the Constitution didn’t originally contain any language granting a universal right to vote.  Originally only white, male landowners were allowed to vote.  That has changed for the better since the days of this country’s founding, but what hasn’t changed in the bill of rights is the 2nd amendment which reads “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

What that implies is that our founding fathers actually put the importance of armed and independent citizens above the universal right to vote.  So yes, depriving citizens of their right to go armed is a civil rights violation.  One that is, with history as our guide, more serious than denying citizens the right to vote.  After all, our Constitution isn’t nearly as direct or clear about asserting voting as a right.  There is no part of that document which reads “the right of the people to vote shall not be infringed.”

Now I think we can all agree that it is perfectly constitutional to deny people with criminal histories certain, or even all, aspects of their 2nd amendment rights.  After all, the 5th amendment allows for the removal of rights from citizens after due process of law.  But for citizens who have broken no laws, what possible justification can any level of government have for denying citizens their right to carry their legally-owned weapons? 

Again, the Constitution is clear: “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Prohibiting citizens from carrying their legally-owned weapons in public without due process law is a pretty clear infringement of that statement to anyone with an ounce of common sense.

If the gun-control people don’t like it, let them change the Constitution.