The Right to Declare Rights... the U.S. 2nd Amendment

The world's constitutions are filled with writing errors.

So when the U.S. founders wrote the Bill of Rights 2nd Amendment,

stating both the Right to Security (which could also have been stated as the Right to Self-Defense) and the Right to Bear Arms in a single Amendment, they are not alone in having made the most common error of rights writing ----combining two or more rights in one Amendment. Another historical declaration of rights, France's Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789) is also loaded with this same error.

A second error of the U.S. Bill of Rights 2nd Amendment is implying something is a natural born right when it is really a law. Arms are a tool, thus arms ownership is really a law not a right. No one is born with a right to tools like guns, knives, shovels, sticks, cars, or computers. Tools should be governed under laws, whether local, state, federal, or international.

We must not confuse rights with laws.

Rights we are born with; laws we construct.

Revising a right to become a law does not mean it takes away the ability to have or do something. It simply make it more malleable. Humans can make a law allowing or not allowing gun ownership, and with it, the rules of that ownership, such as "Every citizen in the United States may own a gun..."

But as a law, there is space for change of the rules, which a right does not have.

Additionally, constitutional rights are only painfully revised.
Many history books portray the painful process of writing rights, whether in 1789 or 1948, due to contention, disagreement, and lengthy meetings drawn out over weeks, months, or years. Founder and Bill of Rights writer James Madison was so busy fighting for the existence of the Bill of Rights that the very substance of what he wrote was barely revised. Five of 17 Amendments were removed and almost none of his writing was changed. Another element included in the 2nd Amendment, complicating it even more, the right of conscientious objectors was removed (the U.S. could have used that one during the Vietnam War).

No revisions? Almost all writers revise.

Poet Walt Whitman kept revising Leaves of Grass, from its first edition in 1855 to his death in 1892. I have revisited and revised this short blog post four or five times. I have even revised a blog post, on occasion, a year later,
after discovering some new information.

Rights are precious, once declared, so the writing of rights has to be pristine.
No one wants their rights touched.
In fact, President Obama had to calm the public
when speaking about guns on Jan.15, 2013, stating that the gun issue
is not about taking away the 2nd Amendment.

"That is not the issue here," Obama clarified during a press conference.

Make no mistake: this blog post is not about whether humans should own guns or not, nor the violence that arms cause. These fall into another rights discussion, either the Right to Life, the Right to Body Care, or even the Right to Biodiversity. This post is about rightsmaking and writing and the result of sloppy or hastily declared rights.

The original post of the Right to Self-Defense explains the 

philosophical source of this right.

Revision: thanks to commenter D.R.

The Right to Expression....Nationality

During World War II,

 the Nazi regime took away passports from persecuted German citizens.

After this war, the Right to Nationality

became Article 15 in the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948).

I declare the Right to Nationality,

whereby each citizen has the right to retain

a legal document stating 

a person's citizenship,

as a necessary document for existence

on an Earth divided into countries.

This right supports the Right to Security.
 the Right to History, and the Right to Cultural Heritage.

However, this right, as a necessary feature of the current world system,
 shall not be used
to undermine the Right to Respect
and the Right to Equality
of each person.


Revision: thanks to commenter A.G., CTK, Chuck F.

The Right to Religious Choice (21st c. Revision)

The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 declares:

"Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion."

May this right be protected and modified by other rights,

which shall be taken into consideration in order to have

the wise and civil use of this right:

The Right to Respect

The Right to Privacy

The Right to Security

The Right to Expression

The Right to Pray

The Right to Sacredness

The Right to Self-Determination

The Right to Life for Humans
The Right to Life for Animals
The Right to Life for Plants

The Right to Apparel Choice

The Right to Freedom of Speech (21st c. Revision)

I declare freedom of speech, in voice and in writing,

for all human beings,

whereby words of language have restrictions
only as naturally imposed
by societal norms (as preferance to law)---

such limits as follows:

1) the natural Right of Respect for others,

this inherent social norm defined as
expression of value, appreciation, and compassion towards the other.

(see previous posts The Right to Respect and The Right to Disagree)

and

2) the natural Right of Security
that all persons are born with,
where one is free of threat to one's safety.

Thus, our words shall be respectful and non-threatening, agreement or disagreement.

This 2011 revision of prior declarations

(which have shown to be too broad and vague in definition)
was created for clarification purposes.

Note that, here, the focus is on speech--- apart from
other forms of communication, such as expression, religion, and petition.