Mike Explains Your Constitutional Right to Own a Firearm

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – It is a God-given, natural right to defend yourself, and if need be to provide subsistence for yourself and your family.  If you had to, in days gone by, hunt your own food, that weapon may come in handy.  It has nothing to do with the Constitution.  The Constitution establishes that the states can have militias and the militias can be regulated by Congress.  If the militias are regulated by Congress, then that is the extent of Congress’s interference or meddling in the affairs of firearms, firearms trafficking, ownership and what have you in the states.  That really doesn’t have anything to do with the individual.  That has to do, again, with the states having militias.  We don’t have militias anymore, so Congress’s influence is almost nil to nothing. Check out the rest in today’s transcript…

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  Robert in Tennessee, you are next.  How are you, sir?

Caller Robert:  Good morning, Dr. Church.  Thank you for taking the call.  I am new —

Mike:  Doctor?  I got a promotion.  [laughing]  Obamacare is here, that’s a demotion.  Don’t call me doctor.

Caller Robert:  I was assuming.  You seem very bright, very intelligent, so I’ll give you an honorary doctorate.

Mike:  Thank you.

Caller Robert:  You mentioned within the last hour that you would, if someone new asked, and I am new and I am asking, if you could establish my constitutional right to own a weapon.  I am not a militia.  I’m just a civilian.  I have a job.  I work.  There are so many debates, I’m sure we will hear them all in the coming weeks to follow.  I know it’s something you’ve probably gone over before, probably many times before.  Some of us are just now waking up and would like to know how we are established that we can own a weapon as an individual.

Mike:  First of all, that’s not a constitutional right.  That is a God-given, natural right to defend yourself, and if need be to provide subsistence for yourself and your family.  If you had to, in days gone by, hunt your own food, that weapon may come in handy.  It has nothing to do with the Constitution.  The Constitution establishes that the states can have militias and the militias can be regulated by Congress.  If the militias are regulated by Congress, then that is the extent of Congress’s interference or meddling in the affairs of firearms, firearms trafficking, ownership and what have you in the states.  That really doesn’t have anything to do with the individual.  That has to do, again, with the states having militias.  We don’t have militias anymore, so Congress’s influence is almost nil to nothing, unless you want to say the National Guard is today’s example of a militia.  Then Congress has some say so.

Caller Robert:  Mr. Church, I’ve already shown how new I am.  It’s just now dawning on me.  It wasn’t in the Constitution, it is an amendment.

Mike:  It’s an amendment to clarify that the states retain all rights that they did not delegate.  That’s what the Tenth Amendment says, for those of you that are also new.  The first eight amendments are basically saying we want to make sure you guys know that we did not delegate any of these rights to the new general government.  We just want to make it crystal clear.  That’s why the First Amendment says “Congress shall make no law.”  It doesn’t say Virginia, Texas, Maryland, Tennessee.  Those amendments were aimed at the federal government not at the states.

Basic Constitution as compact, if you understand the basic premise, it goes like this: the people of a state desire common cause with people of other states in certain endeavors.  Free trade amongst each other is one.  Common defense for when the Brits or the French or the Spanish try to invade is another.  A currency that they can all share is another.  A uniform rule to make citizens of the confederacy or of the union is another.  A way to protect the arts and sciences with copyrights and patents is another.  These are very simple, very ubiquitous things that the states and people of the states, when they ratified the Constitution, said: We used to exercise these powers.  We used to do copyright.  We used to do currency.  We had our own free trade agreements.  We used to do those things.  We’re going to give you the authority to do those things to our mutual benefit and on our behalf.  We’re specifying the things we want you to do, new federal government.  Everything else, no matter what it is, we retain the right, all of it.  That is the Constitution of the United States.  It’s as simple and plain as any human being can make it.

If it was not delegated, if a power was not delegated to be exercised, it was retained, or in the language they used, it was reserved, meaning the states and sovereign people in the sovereign states, in their own political entities, reserve the power to legislate in all those cases unless they delegated that authority to the general government, which is why you have Article I, Section 8 specifying what those authorities are.  In Article I, Section 10, there are a couple things the states said: We’re going to agree that we won’t do any of these things.  There’s no agreement in there that says they won’t secede or won’t leave the union.  There’s no agreement in there that says they won’t regulate firearms.  There’s no agreement in there that says they won’t regulate speech.  There’s no agreement in there that says they won’t supervise their own sports teams.  There’s no agreement in there that says almost everything the general government does today.  There’s no agreement in there that says we’re not going to exercise any authority over our own crops and natural resources.  It doesn’t exist.  It’s a very simple way to understand the federal constitution of the Convention of 1787, ratified in 1788.  I can’t make it anymore plain than that, but I’m glad you asked.  That makes it that much easier to explain to a new listener.  Maybe now you can explain it as well.

End Mike Church Show Transcript