New St. Louis Police Chief dismisses right to keep and bear arms as a 'belief'-------------------------------------It's when Dotson is asked about various legislative proposals in Missouri, to better protect gun rights, that it gets chilling (emphasis added):"I understand the Second Amendment, and I understand everyone's right, or their belief that they have a right to bear arms," he says.Hmm--our "belief that [we] have a right to bear arms"? That wording, which cannot have been accidental, rather strongly implies that Dotson does not share that "belief," which has now been established by two Supreme Court decisions as a settled point of Constitutional law. Dotson continues:"It doesn't give them a right to use that weapon."--------------------------------------------------Well, this time he is correct, if only by accident. The Second Amendment does indeed not "give" the right to use our Constitutionally protected arms to defend our lives and liberty. That right inheres to each and every one of us by virtue of our humanity, as a natural right, not contingent on being "granted" by any government or document. From the Supreme Court's Heller decision (drawing from the 19th century Cruikshank ruling):"We look to this because it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right. The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it “shall not be infringed.” As we said in United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 553 (1876), “[t]his is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed . . . .”That, however, is clearly not the point Dotson is trying to make. Instead, he is grudgingly acknowledging the widespread "belief" in the Second Amendment's Constitutional guarantee of the fundamental human right of the individual to keep and bear arms (as even the Brady Campaign's president Paul Helmke was forced to), but claiming that the right can legitimately be rendered useless, through laws that prohibit "using" it (Dotson should probably look up the difference between "rights" and "privileges," at this point).Meet the new boss; same as the old boss--except that even the old boss doesn't seem to have been so brazen as to openly dismiss the Second Amendment's protection of the individual's right to keep and bear arms as no more than a "belief."http://www.examiner.com/article/new-st-louis-police-chief-dismisses-right-to-keep-and-bear-arms-as-a-belief
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