When you are born you have no rights, it just depends on where you land on earth. The Constitution is just a legal document enforced by the Govt, "the people" "or supposed to be", in this country. But in the grand scheme of things the rights you have been mandated by others,They are subject to your ability to stand up and strive to keep those rights . if all you can do is complain about what you think you should have or believe you have a right to have them because someone told you that you are entitled to have them. Then you are going to get exactlly what you have now. Compalining about things, dosen't solve anything. Discussion is only the first part of a process. Unless you are able to devote time and effort to change unjust laws, it's just lip service.
Really... interesting legal perspective.
Since the US Bill of rights in largely drawn from the intent of the Virginia bill of rights, here's some text from the first paragraph.
That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
Inherent rights, meaning that they are inherent to the person.
The English Bill of Rights states (Directly before the list of rights)
And thereupon the said Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons, pursuant to their respective letters and elections, being now assembled in a full and free representative of this nation, taking into their most serious consideration the best means for attaining the ends aforesaid, do in the first place (as their ancestors in like case have usually done) for the vindicating and asserting their ancient rights and liberties declare
Asserting ancient rights and liberties. Now this was in 1689, ancient to the UK would be pre-Norman conquest, most likely referring to Saxon law. Seems to me that both founding documents are recognizing rights that exist, pre-dating their formalization.
Now once again, your statement of you have no rights, it just depends on where you land. Is also not true, not in the constitutional sense anyway. Nor is it true from the authors of that constitution either.
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.
So when the declaration of Independence was written some people believed that you have unalienable rights period, endowed by their creator. As stated among these Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Now as the 2nd amendment was written shortly after, it would make sense that it would have been considered by those writing it an unalienable right.
Now what is true is that certain countries do not recognize all of the rights that we are supposed to have in the US. To use an analogy, suppose a country requires removal of the left arm at birth, it does not mean that you are not born without a left arm. So it is with your rights.
Now as to the hubris of "if all you can do..." well how do you know we're not? If all people who purport to support the 2nd amendment cannot agree on "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." cannot see that classifying a group, regardless of the group as not being able to exercise this right without committing another crime, is not an infringement; then what hope do we have on convincing those that do not purport to support it?
If the founding fathers never intended criminals to have 2nd amendment rights then at that time with the number of transported convicts I'm sure that the amendment would have read differently. Of course modern history have reclassified many of these into "indentured servants" for instance
On September 9, 1772 Alice Walker, 19 years old and a London citizen, was tried at the Old Bailey, the major criminal court serving London and Middlesex. Walker was charged with stealing a canvas bag, worth one penny, and approximately £12 in cash, from a waggoner named Thomas Atkins. Atkins claimed that Walker stole the bag from him while the two shared a drink at a local pub. Walker, at her trial, contested that Atkins had given her the money to "buy me some wearing apparel," and that he had asked her to go with him into the country the next day. The morning following the shared drink, the constable of Newgate Prison found Walker in bed with a different man named Michael Johnson, a tailor. The constable found the money in Johnson's possession and the canvas bag in his tailor shop. Despite her protestations of innocence, the court found Alice Walker guilty. Her sentence was transportation to Rappahannock, Virginia, where she would be sold as a convict servant for a period of seven years.
Damn £12 at that time was a significant amount of money, more than an average person might earn in a six months (so say $30,000). She would almost certainly have been alive in Virginia at the time that Madison, Patrick Henry et. al. were formulating the Bill of Rights. She was not alone in this, and even by early American Standards a Felon. She was not the only one, there were literally thousands transported, yet here was Jefferson, Henry, and Madison to name but three, who did not in any way indicate the 2nd was restricted to only those in good standing.
Now I know there's an argument of the 5th can eliminate rights, but can it really, it states that you cannot lose life, liberty or property without due process of law. It doesn't mention rights, which in itself is interesting, since it's in the bill of rights itself, if the intent was to allow elimination of rights by LAW then one would expect that this would be the case by the framers.
