Recent Supreme Court rulings have re-established our rights as listed in the Bill of Rights and cannot be abridged by the President, Congress, or the judiciary. Our Individual rights can only be limited by due process as outlined in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Kennedy v. Bremerton School Dist.

The First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

The Pilgrims came to America in 1620 to practice their Christian faith, not the Christian faith of the King of England.  Four hundred years later, federal and state governments as well as the administrative professionals have become as tyrannical as the king. Assistant Coach Kennedy’s action of kneeling at the fifty-yard line after a football game was as great of a threat to the Bremerton School District as the Pilgrims were to the King.

The last paragraph of the Supreme Court Syllabus Kennedy v. Bremerton School Dist. stated, “Respect for religious expressions is indispensable to life in a free and diverse Republic. Here, a government entity sought to punish an individual for engaging in a personal religious observance, based on a mistaken view that it has a duty to suppress religious observances even as it allows comparable secular speech. The Constitution neither mandates nor tolerates that kind of discrimination. Mr. Kennedy is entitled to summary judgment on his religious exercise and free speech claims.”

New York Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen

The Second Amendment: “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.”

“The laws that forbid the carrying of arms… disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” – Thomas Jefferson, Commonplace Book (quoting 18th-century criminologist Cesare Beccaria). The Founders intended the right to bear arms to include for our personal safety.

From the Supreme Court Syllabus; “The constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not “a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.” McDonald, 561 U. S., at 780 (plurality opinion). We know of no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating to government officers some special need. That is not how the First Amendment works when it comes to unpopular speech or the free exercise of religion. It is not how the Sixth Amendment works when it comes to a defendant’s right to confront the witnesses against him. And it is not how the Second Amendment works when it comes to public carry for self-defense.

New York’s proper-cause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment in that it prevents law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their right to keep and bear arms. We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

The Progressive Left v. the Founding Fathers

The ACLU, the de facto legal arm of the progressive left, has argued that it is our collective rights, not our individual rights, are protected.  That an individual right to practice their religious freedom ends when the school bell rings.  Their website even states, “the ACLU has long taken the position that the Second Amendment protects a collective right rather than an individual right.” 

The Founding Fathers “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.”

I hope the Supreme Court continues the path of protecting the rights of American citizens.

Image: APK