The Second Amendment makes it very clear that its purpose is to protect the right to keep and bear arms. In fact, it says the right “shall not be infringed.”

Of course, our right to keep and bear arms has been infringed for years at this point. To make matters worse, the very courts that are supposedly there to protect our rights have joined in on the effort to curtail them.

Earlier this month, one such court decided to up the curtailment by claiming that the Second Amendment doesn’t exist outside your home.

Yes. Seriously.

On 2 November 2018, the First Circuit Court of Appeals held the Second Amendment effectively does not apply outside the home. From uscourts.gov:

This case involves a constitutional challenge to the Massachusetts firearms licensing statute, as implemented in the communities of Boston and Brookline. All of the individual plaintiffs sought and received licenses from one of those two communities to carry firearms in public. The licenses, though, were restricted: they allowed the plaintiffs to carry firearms only in relation to certain specified activities but denied them the right to carry firearms more generally. 

The plaintiffs say that the Massachusetts firearms licensing statute, as implemented in Boston and Brookline, violates the Second Amendment. The district court disagreed, and so do we. Mindful that “the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited,” District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 626 (2008), we hold that the challenged regime bears a substantial relationship to important governmental interests in promoting public safety and crime prevention without offending the plaintiffs’ Second Amendment rights. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s entry of summary judgment for the defendants. In the last analysis, the plaintiffs simply do not have the right” to carry arms for any sort of confrontation” or “for whatever purpose” they may choose. Id. at 595, 626 (emphasis omitted). 

The Court specifically said the decision applies to both the open and concealed carry of handguns. They reserved the power to infringe on concealed carry more than open carry.

Judge Selya wrote the decision for the unanimous three-judge panel. They held that allowing police to decide if a citizen has a “need” to carry a gun outside the home allows sufficient exercise of Second Amendment rights.

A right that can be arbitrarily denied by the government is no right at all. It is effectively just another activity that may be allowed by the government if a bureaucrat decides to allow it.

In the most restrictive countries, without any semblance of Constitutional rights or the Second Amendment, those favored by the government are allowed to carry firearms outside the home. They may not be given a permit, they may be issued a nominal office such as police officer or special marshal, or party member. But those favored by the Government are given the privilege of being armed.

It is hard to see how this decision differs in effect from the practice in countries without a Second Amendment.

Writer Dean Weingarten is absolutely correct here.

If the government can pick and choose who gets to carry a gun, no right to keep and bear arms exists, and at that point, it becomes a privilege. If you can’t carry a weapon anywhere but your house, the right only exists within those walls.

After all, a right is something open to everyone. Anyone can exercise their rights at any time.

But restricting the carrying of firearms to a select few, however…well, I’ve already said it.

In addition to that, it also introduces an incentive for corruption. When a select few can decide who gets to exercise a right such as carrying a firearm, the greater the potential for someone to bribe those few to make sure they’re one of the approved. This is what happened in New York City, and I promise you it’s happened elsewhere.

This is a prime case to go to the Supreme Court, and I hope it does. I hope the Court agrees to hear the case. There’s no way this is remotely right and it needs to end.