Intellectual Honesty and the Second Amendment

The left has indulged in an extreme deceit.

by Rod D. Martin
March 13, 2000

If Americans universally recognize anything as sacred, it is the Constitution. We pay homage to it, we quote from it, and we maintain it as our ultimate secular standard of right and wrong. Hardly a day passes when it does not enter into the thoughts and conversation of every American.

There is a core legal principle which makes this possible: constitutions, we have determined, are greater than laws. "Mere laws," which is to say laws passed by legislatures, are transient things, capable of repeal at a moments notice. But constitutions are special: they require the assent of all the people, through a process that is above and apart from the normal system of government. The Founding Fathers were adamant about this point: a constitution must have a legitimacy and a breadth of acceptance that transcends all other legal and political institutions. And so, for the most part, it has been.

The day in, day out implication of this is pretty simple: no law may be pass…