HuffPo Genius: Self-Defense “Not Legal” Under Constitution

When asked in 2012 to explain why he had so much respect for the Founding Fathers, the late Antonin Scalia said:

“I truly believe there are times in history when genius bursts forth in some part of the globe – 2,000 BC in Athens or Cinquecento Florence for art – and I think one of those places was 18th century America for political science.”

Rarely has anyone been able to sum up the brilliance of America’s founding with such brevity, but Scalia’s theory comes with an unfortunate implication. If there are moments in history where genius coalesces, conspires, and creates something unprecedented, does it not stand to reason that there might be antithetical moments? Great explosions of profound stupidity that push a civilization backwards?

Perhaps Huffington Post writer Justin Curmi can enlighten us. Curmi, who describes himself as a “blogger that seeks to engage people in thought and conversation through presenting new views to matters, new or old” has taken up the burden of revising the Bill of Rights. Let us see what wisdom he has to share with us on the Second Amendment.

“There is no doubt that people do have the right to carry and have a stockpile of guns (“the right of the people to keep and bear arms”) and a state has the right to organize a well-regulated Militia,” Curmi writes.

Wait for it…

“The main issue is on the right to self-defend with a firearm,” Curmi argues. “The main problem with the notion of self-defense is it imposes on justice, for everyone has the right for a fair trial. Therefore, using a firearm to defend oneself is not legal because if the attacker is killed, he or she is devoid of his or her rights.”

Well, this certainly is a “new view” as promised on the marquee. He didn’t claim that his views would be sensible.

After a puzzling detour to explain how arming the mentally incapacitated is in violation of domestic tranquility, Curmi suggests that he has solved the Second Amendment.

“A gun for civilians is a weapon for a revolution and not for ordinary use,” he writes. “The belief that a gun is a useful tool to protect one is counterintuitive because guns get into the hands of people who use them for horrible reasons.”

He then concludes with a tangent about firearms training that insinuates that our rights are dependent on our skill in using them.

His argument seems to come to this:

You can own guns.

You can carry guns.

You cannot use a gun to defend yourself.

Curmi says at the end that he hopes to eliminate the “political divide” on these issues by filtering everything through the Five Aims of the Bill of Rights. He may have accidentally achieved that goal, simply by taking a position that literally no one would agree with.

Er…right?