Wards and guns.

AuthorZoes, Caroline S.A.
PositionLetters - Letter to the editor

In response to "Grandparents, Guns, and Guardianship: Incapacity and the Right to Bear Arms" (Dec. 2013): "The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts.

One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections." Justice Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943).

A "ward" does not lose any other right guaranteed by the Bill of Rights in the Constitution. E.g., they don't lose their freedom of religion; they don't lose their right to be secure in their papers and effects from search without a warrant; they don't lose the right to an attorney or to confront their accuser. In fact, the current Florida law guarantees these rights, explicitly.

They don't lose their right to a speedy trial, or to not be forced to self-incriminate. They don't lose their right to be compensated for property seized by eminent domain, and so on.

These rights belong to individuals, not to the collective. Nowhere does it say that the Bill of Rights is conditional on not being wards of a guardian.

So where does it say that they lose their Second Amendment rights because they have a guardian? Not in the U.S. Constitution. Not in the Florida...

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