Bruce Willis has a message for advocates of stricter gun control legislation: “Don’t infringe on my rights!”
“I think that you can’t start to pick apart anything out of the Bill of Rights without thinking that it’s all going to become undone,” said Willis. “If you take one out or change one law, then why wouldn’t they take all your rights away from you?”
Not an illogical concern, but also not rooted in a full understanding of representative democracy. Hold onto your Beretta, but our Charters of Freedom are not perfect, nor did the Founding Fathers delude themselves into thinking they were.
When the Constitution was written, it was written by, and for, white, male land owners (probably less than 15% of the population); not exactly the perfect document to express freedom and inalienable rights. The Bill of Rights and the ratification process of amendments were created to give evolving relevance to the charter and to inform citizens of constitutional protections so that laws could be written to enforce those rights and to govern fairly as we grew.
That is where their collective vision came into play.
The truth is, the Constitution was written to define only two purposes: 1) to establish a federal government and 2) to delegate to that federal government limited (and enumerated) powers. The Constitution does not give us rights, but is designed to protect our rights.
The intent of the Bill of Rights was to prevent misconstruction of governmental powers and to ensure public confidence as a unified proclamation defining issues, deliberated upon to a point of agreement.
For example, voting within the system of government originally set forth, did not include women, but as our social consciousness progressed we came to realize, through our process of representative democracy, that the right must be clarified to include women, and the 19th amendment was ratified.
The rights of citizenship did not include former slaves even after emancipation and the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were written and ratified to clarify the purpose and extent of freedom protected by our government.
The 1st Amendment was written to give the promise of freedom a strong foundation, but it also continues to be clarified in courts as slander and defamation issues will always 
surface.
When 2nd Amendment rights are bandied about by everyone from Bruce Willis to Ted Nugent who profess that, “We cannot meddle with what our Founding Fathers put forth,” it is without the understanding of what they actually “put forth.”
The 2nd Amendment must also be examined and interpreted as society itself changes.
Even 100 years after the Constitution was written it remained inconceivable that Americans would use firearms inappropriately. It was, in fact, considered un-American that the President of the United States would ever require security- even after Lincoln was assassinated! The American people remained steadfast that assassination was contrary to our national psyche.
It was only after the third assassination of a
president, the murder of President McKinley, that we started to think differently.
Today, as we examine the words “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” we absolutely must put them in the context of their time.
We can, indeed, rightfully “bear arms” but as our societal norms have changed, as our weaponry has changed, parameters must be created and continually re-examined to accommodate or contain new realities.
That is not an affront to the Constitution as Mr. Willis has implied, rather, it is the realization of its true intent; to create a society of fair and just laws to protect our liberties in a changing world.
