Our Wonderful Bill of Rights: The Second, Third & Fourth Amendments

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution was intended to protect the right of the individual to own and use guns. Power-hungry politicians view gun ownership as an obstacle to the expansion of federal power and exploit every public tragedy involving firearms as propaganda for tighter restrictions on their use.

The Second Amendment states, "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." Advocates of gun control latch on to that word "militia" and insist that the Amendment merely authorizes the bearing of arms by a state-organized group. But the intentions of the Founding Fathers are clear. After all, if they had not owned guns as individuals, they could not have overthrown the tyranny of England and established a free country.

Our right to privacy, protected by the Third and Fourth Amendments, is also under attack. The Federal Government seems determined to increase its control over all of us by prying into our daily lives. Tax collectors and regulatory agents have snooped on us for years; now, in the name of combatting terrorism, government officials want to expand the inquisitorial power of federal agents.

The Third Amendment forbids the quartering of soldiers in private homes during peacetime without the consent of the owner. The Fourth Amendment guarantees "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures," and forbids the issuing of warrants except "upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Government officials would like to empower federal agents to force banks, credit card companies, telephone companies, hotels, motels, airlines, and buslines to turn over their records on individual Americans - without a search warrant or a court order. They also want to set up a federal, interagency, domestic counter-terrorism center and empower the Attorney General to investigate groups without any evidence of a criminal act or plot.

How long would we retain our freedoms if the 200 million weapons stored in American homes were instead locked up in a government armory?