Bob Owens:

As tempting as it may be to turn to theological roots for the Second Amendment, the fact is the Second Amendment is a direct descendant of English Common Law. In her treatise, “The Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms: The Common Law Tradition,” Joyce Lee Malcolm explains the English Bill of Rights adopted in 1689.

When William III of Orange, a protestant, invaded England in 1688 he overwhelmed James II, a Catholic, who was unable to mount an effective defense. It is important to understand that the religion of the monarch determined the religion of England. James II wisely withdrew which lead to Parliament negotiating with William, and his wife Mary, for the throne of England, Scotland and Ireland. The subsequent accession, known as the Glorious Revolution, was predicated upon their acceptance of parliamentary rule.

Parliament drew up a Declaration of Rights which was signed by William and Mary on February 13, 1689 and cleared the way for them to be crowned as joint monarchs. It was that Bill of Rights our Founding Fathers used as a basis for our own Constitution.

The basic tenets of the Bill of Rights 1689 included freedom from royal interference with the law, freedom from taxation without agreement by Parliament, and freedom to have arms for defense among other stipulations. While there were significant religious overtones due to the country’s struggle to reduce the influence of Catholicism in favor of Protestantism, the Bill of Rights established the rights of individuals over the government and it is that right to bear arms for defense that was the basis for our own Constitution’s Second Amendment.

A man-made document can never … never … establish rights.  It can only recognize what has already been established by the almighty.  Bob began okay with a recitation of Scriptures, but he eventually migrated to a discussion of the second amendment.

We’ve discussed this before in detail.  The constitution is a covenant, an agreement by which men will live together, with both blessings and curses, whether explicit or implied.  Breakage of said covenant means that the covenant is null and void, just as adultery in the marriage covenant justifies divorce.

English common law is indeed the basis for much of what we live by today, or are supposed to live by.  But English common law has as its basis biblical law, because our own founders and our mother country understood that ethics and morality must be rooted in something other than might, will to power, rule of the majority or convenience.

Those roots are the Scriptures.  God gives us the right to carry weapons, even if the second amendment disappears tomorrow.  And Bob should have stopped a third of the way through his commentary.