The United States Supreme Court has declined to affirm the constitutional, Second Amendment rights which are guaranteed to citizens. They did so by rejecting an appeal from a lower court. That court had ruled that the state of California can impose severe restrictions on issuing permits to carry firearms.

In refusing to hear the appeal, the lower court ruling remains in effect.

Only two justices, Clarence Thomas and the newly seated Neil Gorsuch, dissented. Quoting them from Fox News, “The Court’s decision… reflects a distressing trend: the treatment of the Second Amendment as a disfavored right,” they wrote.

The court’s ruling seems to be in conflict with two earlier Supreme Court Rulings, in 2008 and 2010, that Second Amendment rights apply to individuals, not to the government alone -- as in police and military.

Of course, you and I know that the Bill of Rights is entirely for protection of the individual from government excess. Few on the left understand the individual empowerment theme of the first ten amendments, or if they do, they disagree with it.

There may, however, be a bright side to this. First, it is now clear that we need more justices like Thomas and Gorsuch. It would have taken only two more to grant certiorari, requiring the court to hear the appeal. Pressure on President Trump, to appoint such justices, will now increase.

However, as the leftist liberals discovered to their horror in 2008 and 2010, taking a case to the court might backfire. The court can always rule against those who feel assured they will prevail. Therefore, it is important not to file an appeal until all the pieces are in place. Failure to do so can result in a precedent that might take a lifetime to overcome.

Therefore, it behooves us to tread carefully.

That said, it remains amazing that basic Constitutional rights could possibly be so easy to suppress. While some rights that are not even in the Constitution are enforced, there seems to be significant antipathy regarding the right to keep and bear arms -- a right that “shall not be infringed.”

A common argument used by the misinformed is that the Second Amendment applies only to muskets, the firearm commonly in use at the time. However, there is no mention of firearms. In fact, a very common weapon in the 1700s was the sword. If the misinformed opponents of firearms were honest in their claim that only flintlock muskets are permitted, then why don't they oppose the fact that there are many jurisdictions where six-inch knife blades are prohibited? Surely, the Second Amendment authorizes them as carry weapons.

A more reasonable argument, but not a truly reasonable one, is that if everyone were allowed unrestricted access to guns, that one could never feel safe in public. Indeed, even in the Wild West of yore, Dodge City required cowboys to hand over their weapons before patronizing the local drinking establishments.

However, subsequent American history lays that fear to rest. In the 1920s, my father carried his gun to school each day. So did all the boys in his rural community. After school, on the way home, they hunted for food. Interestingly, although there were numerous fights with bullies, no one ever used, nor even brandished, a weapon. Black eyes, bloody noses, and the humiliation of having to say, “uncle,” were the worst of it. Mass shootings in schools happened only after the culture degenerated.

True, today in certain inner cities, there is an abundance of violent gun crimes. But a number of factors, not individual rights, is the culprit. Those cities are run by liberal Democrats who are far too lenient with brutal criminals. There is a sick joke in which a judge releases a murderer because it was only his first offense. A degenerate culture that makes excuses for recalcitrants, and considers as normal all manner of perversion, has undermined respect for others, and for the law.

Perhaps the most fearsome clause in the Second Amendment is not the phrase, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The phrase just before that is the one that terrifies big government advocates. It says, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State...”

This phrase, using the definitions of the 1700s, does not refer to a government-regulated militia, but rather, to a well-trained organization of citizens, able at a “minute’s notice” to take up arms against any force that threatens liberty, which in 1776, included the ruling government.

Combining this with the Declaration of Independence, which says, “…it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,” and, “it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government,” it is easy to see why progressive liberals despise the right of people to be free, and to be empowered to defend liberty.

For those who say that only right-wing loons today believe in the Second Amendment, here is a quote from one of their icons, John F. Kennedy:

"Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom."

It should greatly concern us, then, that, “The Court’s decision… reflects a distressing trend: the treatment of the Second Amendment as a disfavored right.”

It is somewhat ironic that it is the people who threaten to blow up the White House, who depict the beheading of the President, who celebrate gun violence directed against Republicans -- and who riot to prevent speakers from speaking against rioters -- that it is they who oppose your right to defend yourself.

We must also bear in mind how thinly the government itself supports that right. Thank God for Donald Trump, but we are going to need more.