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Americans Should Not Be Stripped of Their Ability to Defend Themselves Against Lawlessness

Recently many in government and politics, in reaction to a violent and lawless few, have reignited the cry to “limit the legal ability” of Americans to buy and possess certain firearms.  The states must protect the people from such federal overreach.

President Biden and others have said that our Rights are “not absolute” therefore those in government possess the authority to limit, define, and regulate away our Rights. If this rhetoric is true, then no one in America possesses ANY rights, they only have privileges granted at the pleasure of government.  How is it that inherent rights endowed to man by the Creator are “not absolute,” but the crisis-driven dictates from the everchanging turnstile of elected officers ARE absolute?   

Here’s the truth: that which is absolute in our republican form of government is the Constitution (Article 6, Clause 2). It is the Constitution of the United States that limits and defines the authority delegated to the federal government.  Within that Constitution there is NO AUTHORITY resting in the federal government to regulate, define, or limit the Rights of the People.  This is particularly true with the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.  Not only is there no power delegated to the federal government to create any law or regulation regarding the purchase or possession of firearms (no, that’s not where the commerce clause kicks in), the Second Amendment has very absolute language prohibiting the federal government from limiting or regulating this right (Not to mention that to guard against a tyrannical federal government is the core reason WHY this inherent right is enshrined within the Constitution).  

It is not “the will of the majority,” as politicians and pundits suggest, that is the basis of government.  When the majority’s will advocates the suspension of due process and the revocation of a person’s natural rights (rights which all officials involved in this debate swore an oath to uphold), that is how slavery gets its legal foothold.

The solution to a federal government overreaching its delegated authority as presented by those who drafted our government’s blueprint is straightforward: the States must refuse to impose and enforce these laws and prevent the federal government from doing the same within their State.

The Supreme Court of the United States quoted James Madison’s explanation of this action in Mack, Prinz v. US:

“Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people.  The different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself…”  Federalist 51

“The local or municipal authorities form distinct and independent portions of the supremacy, no more subject within their respective authorities than the general authority is subject to them, within its own sphere.” Federalist 39

The States are a “double security” to the preservation of the people’s rights because the State will be a control on the unconstitutional exercise of power by the federal government against pretended power within the states’ jurisdictions.

The Supreme Court of the United States reiterated this principle in the majority opinion of NFIB v. Sebelius, when Justice John Roberts wrote:

“In the typical case we look to the States to defend their prerogatives by adopting the “the simple expedient of not yielding” to federal blandishments when they do not want to embrace federal policies as their own.  The states are separate and independent sovereigns.  Sometimes they have to act like it.”

The right to individually secure our life, liberty, and property is no different than our rights to freedom of speech, freedom to peaceably assemble, or freedom to worship and live out our faith.  A law that prohibits a person from possessing any degree of property, but especially property essential to the personal security of individual rights, without due process, ought to be rejected.  Capricious legislature moved by the tragedy du jour should not be the model for sound and stable government charged with protecting liberty. Rather than removing liberty under the guise of protecting children, we should protect liberty so that people can be free to protect themselves. *Remember, violent criminals don’t obey gun bans and the victim is always the first person on the scene, So why not empower the would-be victim to protect themselves, rather than removing their ability to do so? The cold reality is that a gun-free zone is a stripping of Americans’ natural right to defend themselves and has led to the death of many innocent children, as violent criminals ignore the signposts and slaughter the law-abiding.

State Governors, Legislators, and Sheriffs must declare publicly and openly that they will uphold their oath to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of their State by refusing to enforce and refusing the federal government the jurisdiction to enforce any limit upon the Rights of the People, to include the Right to keep and bear arms.

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and laws of the State of (name of State), and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of (name of office) to the best of my ability. Oath of Office

For those who want a more detailed explanation:

Background:

The Declaration of Independence lays before us the premise and purpose of all governments, past, present, & future.  It states:

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, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Sole Purpose of Government:

• Secure the Rights of All People Equally and Individually

It is evident that the entire purpose of any form of government is to secure the rights of the individual citizen.  The Rights our foundational documents refer to are those classified as “inherent rights:” and they consist of life, liberty, property, and the right to personally secure them in the best manner possible.  The most basic of natural rights is the right to self-preservation, to which the natural right to secure property is connected.  No person is secure in their life if they cannot also personally secure that life and the property upon which life is dependent.  If a person is in danger of loss of life, liberty, or property and has not the personal right, along with the individual ability, to secure these essential rights, then each person is dependent upon someone else’s desire to protect them, reducing every person to that of an indentured or tributary slave, indebted in life to those who are tasked with its security.

Origin of Legislative Power:

• Individual Rights Precede Legislative Power, Therefore Legislative Power Exists Solely To Ensure Individual Rights

The legislator with his delegated responsibility, cannot be exalted above the inherent rights of the individual which he is charged to protect.  Life, liberty, and property do not exist because people have legislators who have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused people to entrust legislators with the power to make laws in the first place. So the justification “it was passed by the legislature,” does not and should not override an inherent individual right, even more so when the legislature is admonished by the Supreme Law to not infringe upon said right.

The Definition of “Just Power”

• Just Power of Government Secures the Individual’s Rights Above All Other Objectives

Therefore, it is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his, individually and personally. It is because of this duty to protect the individual’s natural rights that every government in these United States incorporates the requirement of due process for the suspension of these Rights.  It is not a just government, nor is an individual’s right secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the comfort or peace of mind of the rest (even if the rest constitutes 60% of the population).

The Definition of “Unjust Power”

• Unjust Power is Power Exercised by Government to the Destruction of the Individual’s Rights

The mere existence of a majority desire does not override the natural rights of the minority.  To create and enforce laws merely because the majority (60% of the people) desire the law to be so, absent any regard to personal and individual rights, is nothing more than a tyranny of the majority.  It is through this errant political motivation that history’s greatest injustices have taken place, even here in America.  It was once the majority opinion that a minority of people could, by law, be placed in a state of permanent and inherent servitude.  It was once the majority opinion that a minority of people could be legally classified as mere property or chattel.   It was once the majority opinion that legally enforced physical segregation of the majority from a minority was appropriate.  It was once the majority opinion that a minority of Japanese Americans and Hopi Indians could lawfully be imprisoned indefinitely in internment camps without due process.  Americans ought to be learning from these mistakes, not fighting to repeat them.  The majority of Americans would agree that a single dictator with the power to oppress all is a wicked and unjust government.  Please then explain, how the tyranny of the majority is any different than the despotism of one in the lives of those whose rights are violated?

Majority Rule is synonymous with Tyranny of the Majority Not with Liberty

The “Rule of Law” is a term that has been understood throughout history to mean a standard to limit the overreach of government and curb lawlessness.  It is does not mean the authority of the government to rule over the people. The independent states of America and their central government were created with written Constitutions to maintain a written limited standard for government to prevent the will of the majority and those who govern to usurp the rights of the individual.  The so-called “will of the majority” cannot be synonymous with the rule of law.  If that be the case, then those who are disposed to usurp the rights of the people, need only to control the will of the majority; either through manipulations, coercions, fear, or brute force.  It is because of this truth of the tyranny of the majority that every government in these United States is required to exist as a republic, not a pure democracy; that every law to be created through equal representation, and is to be governed by and limited to the ultimate purpose of all government – the security of the Rights of the individual through written Constitutions.  When any form of government operates contrary to these foundations, that government has exceeded its proper function, acting in direct opposition to its own purpose. The law has been used to destroy its own objective.  It has been applied to annihilating the justice that it was supposed to maintain, to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect. It has converted lawful defense of life, liberty, and property into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense of these essential and natural rights.

When the Laws of Government Operate Contrary to Individual Rights:

• Government Is Operating Contrary to Its Sole Purpose
• Government Is Not Operating with Just Power
• The People Are Not Free

It becomes the duty of all who love and respect the Rights of their children to protect the citizen from the unjust operation of government.

When those entrusted in government to secure the rights of the individuals turn that trust into a tool to deny those rights, it is incumbent upon those who understand the obvious limits of government and the necessity of those limits to stand in opposition to that unjust use of authority.  Just as those in America’s past, who refused to enforce the Federal Fugitive Slave Act because of its obvious abuse of power and destruction of rights wielded by those legislators who ratified it into law.  Those who have taken an oath to secure the rights of the people, who understand the magnitude of that solemn promise and the unavoidable and tragic consequences of failing to uphold that promise, feel morally compelled to take a stand.  How noble an example would American history have if there was just one Sheriff in Montgomery, Alabama who recognized that a law, ratified by legislators, signed by a governor, reflecting the will of the majority, was not a just law after all.  What if instead of arresting Mrs. Rosa Parks, that Sheriff refused to enforce a law that deprived an individual of her rights and instead protected those rights, escorting Mrs. Parks, in which ever seat she chose, all the way home?  Those, who are dedicated to their just and lawful duty to secure the rights of the people, understand that at these times the “will of the majority” and the distortion of the rule of law’s definition must be resisted.

If those in the federal government mean to obtain or deserve the full praise due to wise and just governments, they will equally respect the rights of property, and every inherent right of the individual.  If they truly wish for a free and strong nation, they will endeavor to sacredly guard all forms of individual property and resist all desires to violate the individual’s right, regardless of the opinion of the majority or the fleeting emotion of the day.  They will not seek to “target the bad guys” by stripping law abiding citizens of their inherent rights and turning otherwise lawful behavior into crimes.  Our inherent rights are not killing innocents, so why are our rights targeted?  Oppression doesn’t bring safety. Our governments should seek to be a pattern of liberty and an example of just government so that our posterity may be truly free.

(Watch our videos on the History the Right to Keep & Bear Arms)……

Recently the United States Federal Court for the 5^th Circuit held that the federal agency, Occupational Safety and Health Association (OSHA), cannot lawfully mandate vaccines on American businesses while a trial concerning the matter is pending.  The majority opinion establishes that this mandate is “staggeringly overbroad” and the “loss of constitutional freedoms ‘for even minimal periods of time…unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.’”

What The Court’s Opinion Means for The Rest of America?

During the Trump Administration, the Senate confirmed federal judges for the 5^th Circuit making that circuit one of the most “conservative” courts in the federal court system.  The 5^th Circuit was the perfect court, from a constitutional perspective, to hear this issue.  Other circuits, namely the 9^th Circuit, would likely find, under the same conditions, a completely different result.

The federal court system is divided into twelve circuits that divide the States into twelve legal districts.  Each federal district court holds a binding authority in federal issues over the lower federal courts of that district.  Under normal circumstances, the 5^th Circuit opinion would put a halt to OSHA enforcing the mandate in every district, so as to act in the abundance of caution; but, we are not operating under normal circumstances.  Since this presidential administration is already refusing to comply with court orders it doesn’t agree with, there should be no surprise when they treat this order with the same contempt.  Additionally, the main objective of this administration has not been to uphold the Constitution, but to force this vaccine on as many people as they can convince or bully into taking before the Supreme Court legal hammer falls. Because the 5^th Circuit opinion is only legally binding in the 5^th Circuit courts, OSHA could legally continue to enforce the mandate within the States located in the other districts.

The Supreme Court Will Have to Settle The Issue

Now that the 6^th Circuit Court of Appeals has been assigned the task of resolving the other suits against OSHA, the Supreme Court will ultimately be tasked with settling any disputes or hearing any appeals. The OSHA vaccine mandate question will have to be answered by the Supreme Court to have finality and possibly the respect of this administration.  The question then becomes, “How will this particular Supreme Court decide this case?” 

The issue of an OSHA vaccine mandate will definitely test the so called “conservative” justices; this will likely be a 5-4 split opinion — the only question being, in which direction?  In my opinion we can almost guarantee which way several of the justices will cast their vote.  If past opinions dictate future trends, we can be guaranteed that Sotomayor, Kagan, and Breyer will cast their vote in favor of any government mandate issued by the Biden Administration.  If past opinions dictate future trends, I believe we can be equally guaranteed that Neil Gorsuch will vote against this mandate.  That leaves the justices that many believe to be “conservatives:” Roberts, Kavanaugh, Barrett, Thomas, and Alito.

If I had to make a prediction based upon experience, I would say that Roberts is more likely to side with the liberals than with Gorsuch.  Not necessarily because he is a liberal in disguise (and he is), but because Roberts is a corporate courtier; he almost always sides with the big money.  I also believe, in spite of Thomas’s occasional tendency toward the police powers of government, that Thomas will side with Gorsuch.  I believe that Thomas will feel a greater pull to his Constitutional tendencies than his “security over liberty” leanings.  Justice Alito’s tendency is to follow either Thomas or Gorsuch.  Since I am predicting that Thomas and Gorsuch will be on the same side, I will put Alito in the group that will vote against the mandate.  That leaves just Kavanaugh and Barrett.  What made be unknown to many conservatives in America, unless they were watching my podcast during Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing, Kavanaugh is NOT a consistent constitutionalist.  During the confirmation hearings I warned that Kavanaugh is most aptly described as “Kennedy 2.0” and he has lived up to that title so far.  He is a moderate at best who leans conservative on some issues and liberal on others.  In this case I will, with hesitancy, predict that Kavanaugh will lean conservative.  With these predictions we now have a 4-4 court that leaves only Barrett to break the tie.

Many conservatives would be overjoyed with that conclusion, believing that Barrett is not only a conservative, but someone who would choose the Constitutional and Religious Liberty option to deny the mandate.  Unfortunately, nothing in Barrett’s term of service in the Supreme Court or her previous legal experience supports that conclusion.  During Barrett’s confirmation hearing, the American people were told that Barrett was a constitutional, religious liberty nominee.  Other than being a devout educated Catholic, nothing in Barrett’s history establishes that she is either constitutional or religious liberty minded.  Barrett is a slave to precedent.  She will mindlessly adhere to whatever the court has established in the past, right or wrong.  Since she has become a Supreme Court Justice, Barrett has sided with the liberal justices on some of the most important cases.  I am not comfortable with Barrett being the tie breaker on what could be the most important Supreme Court issue of my lifetime.  Will she side with the errantly portrayed precedent of Jacobsen?  Or will she side with the Constitution and the rights of the people?

What Is the Most Certain Solution To This OSHA Overreach?

The uncertainty and the tendency of the courts to be personally biased in their opinions is the reason why the courts are not the ultimate or final check and balance of federal gourmandizing of power.  Those who ratified our Constitution and designed our Constitutional Republic were repulsed by the notion that the federal government itself would be its only check and balance.  The designed ultimate and final check on the federal government exercise of authority is and always has been the people through their States.  Thomas Jefferson (18120 explained it this way:

…when all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the centre of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another…If the States look with apathy on this silent descent of their government into the gulf which is to swallow all, we have only to weep over the human character formed uncontrollable but by a rod of iron…

The design of our Constitutional Republic created a most powerful check on the federal authority through the power of the State to refuse to comply with unlawful federal laws, regulations, and executive orders.  Proponents of the Constitution made multiple arguments regarding the authority of the States to be the ultimate limit upon the federal government when that government steps outside the specifically enumerated and delegated powers of the Constitution.  Hamilton’s explanation may have been one of the most influential since he was the one arguing for federal power, yet explaining that even the power he proposed was limited by the Constitution to be enforced by the States.  Alexander Hamilton expressed the basis for this check by the States in Federalist 78:

There is no position which depends on clearer principles, than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void.  No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid.

Hamilton’s explanation is a direct reference to Article 6 clause 2 of the Constitution that declares that when the federal government makes laws that are inconsistent with the Constitution, “the judges of the State” are not bound to them.  When the judges of the States are not bound, no one in the State is bound; those laws, regulations, and executive orders are “null and void.”  There is no authority delegated to the federal government to exercise an Occupational Safety and Health Association within the boundaries of the States.  Without a specifically enumerated delegation of power to do so, the federal government’s assertion of power is invalid.

Florida is exercising this State authority to check and balance unconstitutional federal power as it begins to separate the State from federal OSHA authority altogether.  Florida is making moves to refuse OSHA authority and regulations and create their own State agency that will fill that gap.  There are some in the federal government who profess, like political activist lawyer Ron Coleman, that it is outside Florida’s authority to deny OSHA in their State.  For people like Coleman, that errant understanding of State authority and professed unlimited power of the federal government is the product of one hundred eighty-eight years of bad education sparked by federal supremacists and certain political activist Supreme Court Justices.  People like Coleman have decided to set aside the true design of the Constitution and the facts regarding its proper application as dictated by those who actually wrote the document, in favor of an ideology that the federal government itself is its only limit to power, and the courts can alter and expand federal power through judicial opinions contrary to Article V of the Constitution.  This progressive ideology flies in the face of every agreement made to ratify the Constitution, every limit to power designed by the Constitution, and the very principles of separation of powers instituted to ensure that the people are the governors over government and not subjects to rogue federal agencies.  Coleman’s assertion, and those who agree with him, that the “commerce clause” is some kind of boilerplate phrase that endows upon the federal government the authority to create for itself unlimited authority over every aspect of life as long as they can somehow bootstrap a “money” argument to it cannot find any justification in the Constitution or the writings of those who created that Compact.  No to mention Coleman’s argument was brilliantly defeated by James Madison in 1792 (see the Cod Fisher Debate, also see Federalist #45).

The only sure solution to ending federal vaccine mandates will be when the States decide to exercise the powers reserved to them as enshrined in the Tenth Amendment.  That will mean that the people in the States must get educated and demand that our States start behaving more like the “independent sovereign governments” the Supreme Court in NFIB v. Sebelius recognized them to be and less like the subservient colonies that Coleman and his political and educational aristocrats want them to be.

If you would like to understand the principles of limited federal power and the State check and balance as the founders created them, please consider joining LibertyFirstSociety.com and learn from the founders themselves instead of activist professors.

In the beginning, there was the Ninth Amendment and the Ninth Amendment was the beginning of these United States. It’s the genesis of America.

If we start the story at the beginning, we understand that all the rights in the universe belong to the people, as Constitutional scholar KrisAnne Hall likes to say. And these rights came from our Creator.

**Get Your Constitution & American History Education at LibertyFirstSociety.com**

From that, the people created government and gave it certain powers to guarantee our rights. It’s important to remember that only the people have rights because rights come from God rather than from people.

That’s why government possesses no rights, but only powers delegated by the people. This is an important distinction because men can’t rightfully take away what our Creator has given us. But people can properly take away any power it has delegated to the government.

On the flip side, men can’t grant each other rights because we’re not the Lord. And government can’t grant each other more power because it’s not the people. That which is created is not superior to its creator.

This line of reasoning is known as “Rules of Construction” in legal arguments. “They tell us how to ‘construe’ the powers delegated to the federal government,” explains Michael Maharrey, communications director with the Tenth Amendment Center.

That’s what makes the Ninth and Tenth Amendments in the Bill of Rights different than the first eight, which list and guarantee individual rights. Instead, they are statements of first principles.

KrisAnne Hall calls the Ninth Amendment “the most important clause in the entire Constitution” because it’s the foundation upon which all the rest stand.

It’s also important to understand what the Constitution is, and what it does. The Constitution is a compact among the States that primarily does three things: (1) It sets up the structure of our federal government; (2) It limits the power of our federal government; and (3) It guarantees our rights against government encroachment.

The States (representing the people) strengthened our sovereignty by creating the federal government to essentially be an ambassador to other nations, a referee among the States, and an armed guard for national defense.

All this emphasis on personal liberty makes these United States unique in the history of nations.

America was founded on ideas that put the people above the government. The first is a theological maxim that we are all born free and in God’s image. Inherent in our humanity is Liberty, and it came from our Creator. Second, is the political application of a Constitutional Republic that puts the Rule of Law above the Law of Rulers.

The Ninth Amendment is that rock-solid foundation we can stand upon to remind politicians that all rights belong to the people. And that it’s government’s job to protect those rights.

After all, we were here first. And then the States. And then the federal government. And the rules of construction dictate who’s the boss and who’s the servant.

So when any government servant tells us to move from that rock of Liberty, it’s our job to plant our feet firmly where they belong and say, “No – YOU move.”

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The writer is the host of The Burnie Thompson Show®. He is a watchdog journalist in Panama City Beach, Fl. and talk-radio host from 2007-2020. E-mail him at burniethompson@protonmail.com.

Kimberly Overman, a county commissioner from Hillsborough County, Florida wants to color-code school children whose parents opt-out of face masks. 

The school board initially voted to require mask wearing in schools while also offering an opt-out choice for parents.  The original announcement never included a notice to parents that opting out would result in your child being labled with a color code, arm band, star or any other scarlet letter insignia.  Nor was the public informed that the measure would include the public label of “autharitarian bully” being placed on the parents for choosing the option offered to by Hillsbourough’s elected representatives to empower parents to excercise their fundamental parental rights.

Commissioner Overman is well-known in Tampa for not respecting fundamental rights and for not viewing herself as a representative but rather as a ruling monarch. A number of residents have been very vocal at the school board and at the commission meetings.  Their activism resulted in the opt-out option.  Clearly, the overlords in the Tampa area resent the input from county residents and parents and are now seeking a method of retaliation.