David Codrea:

Per The Omaha World-Herald, “Bruning was one of 18 state attorneys general who signed a letter sent by the National Association of Attorneys General, urging the Senate to confirm Holder’s nomination.” He also, per that report, declined to talk about Fast and Furious “gunwalking” that happened on Holder’s watch.

“Mr. Holder is a known quantity to some of us,” the 2009 letter sent to then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy and then-Ranking Member Arlen Specter stated, as if that was a good thing, especially considering Mr. Holder was indeed a known quantity to gun rights proponents at the time the letter was written.

Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning is in the middle of a controversy – he always seems to be – on the denial of weapons rights to a long standing legal Mexican resident.

This is a detailed and involved articled by David, one that you really need to read, both to be educated and to understand my response.

First of all, the NRA has absolutely got to do better at ranking politicians than they do.  On the other hand I have talked to them via phone and to their credit they do a fair to good job of keeping abreast of issues and politicians.  Oftentimes a politician is disingenuous and cites an NRA ranking that was done well before a given candidacy in which they claim that it applies.  So the NRA needs to do better (of course they do), and politicians need to stop lying (like they ever will).

Now let’s get to the issue of guns and Mexicans.  If you read David’s prose and the accompanying comments from well-educated readers, you will see that they all support gun rights for legal residents.

Here is a news flash.  So do I.  I wonder from time to time about going abroad on short term mission trips and also lament the fact that most of the locations to which I would go do would not allow a weapon to be brought into the country.  And then I think hard about my God-given duty to protect myself.  Ultimately, if you do something like that you must be cognizant of the fact that you are sustaining a certain risk that you cannot ameliorate.

In fact, I even favor the restoration of guns rights for non-violent felons, and I do not believe in the rehabilitative power of prisons (indentured servitude is the best way to pay debts, since a debt is not to society but to individuals).  But I need to discuss some caveats.  God gives us our rights, the state merely recognizes them.  One commenter observes that the Second Amendment nowhere says that it applies only to citizens.  True enough, that’s beside the point.

The Second Amendment doesn’t grant us a right.  It says that the federal government cannot impinge on that right.  And it doesn’t speak to state governments.  That’s why – in my opinion – listen carefully here before you ascribe to me something I am not saying – state constitutions also need clearly to outline a man’s right to weapons, and the local laws clearly need to support that doctrinal stand.  As advocates of states’ rights and tenth amendment advocates, we need NOT to turn to the federal government for delineation of our rights, even on the state and local level.  The constitution and bill of rights doesn’t delineate our rights, it restricts the federal government from impinging on certain rights.  Those rights also must be protected at lower levels of government.  Here I strongly recommend reading Clarence Thomas And The Amendment Of Doom.

Regarding illegal aliens (or residents if you want to call them that), I strongly oppose such rights (that is, right to have guns).  Just as God grants them a right to self defense, He grants us a right to protect our borders.  His right to self defense doesn’t outweigh our right to national sovereignty as long as there is a remedy available to him that doesn’t also impinge on any other rights, i.e., becoming legal.  These are carefully thought-out stipulations and explanations – do you need to read them and think about them again before reacting?

These are all controversial issues, but ones that we needed to discuss.  You may disagree with my take on the Second Amendment (and believe that it speaks to states), and I accept that disagreement.  But if you turn off your interest knob after reading the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution, I continue my interest to the State Constitutions.  I have more work to do than you.  But I strongly believe that governance is best when the political fight happens first and foremost at the local and state levels.  Our founding fathers saw a much weaker central government than do we, and the notion that they would have had to turn to a national document to show their rights is preposterous.  Our founders believed that they were stipulating behavior and framing in the centralizers.