Constitutional Right to Bear Arms Found in Only Three Nations -- Rest of World Smothered in Tyranny, Apparently
We've known for some time that the American Constitution, that yellowed document containing all our inalienable and God-given rights, was a special slip of parchment. The first of its kind, we've been told. The example. The lodestar. The exceptional.
American, Mexican, and Guatemalan exceptionalism.
But recent research, publicized last week in Bloomberg, has helped shed light on how truly exceptional our founding document remains. Through the work of University of Texas Government Associate Professor Zachary Elkins and a pair of colleagues, we now know that the United States Constitution is one of only three national constitutions, out of approximately 200 extant, that guarantees the right to a personal firearm.
"For some, this lonely position is enough to suggest that the U.S. should rethink the current interpretation of the Second Amendment," Elkins and his team wrote. "For others, it is a reason to celebrate American exceptionalism."
Joined by Mexico and Guatemala, America's guarantee of self-armament is a relic from an era bygone. That's neither to question its validity nor its usefulness -- an exegetical debate of the Second Amendment will be continue as long as the right exists -- but, rather, to show how remarkably unique the right remains.
Consider: In addition to Mexico and Guatemala, six other nations have ever enshrined the right to bear arms within their nations. Those six other countries, however, have since rescinded such rights, with the likes of Costa Rica and Bolivia returning to the despotic nether-hole they once knew. (The only non-New World nation to have ever promised such a right in its constitution is Liberia, which, since its erasure, has turned into an autocratic inferno whose female president recently won the Nobel Peace Price. Tyranny!)
"I wouldn't have been surprised if [the right to bear arms] were kind of lodged deeply into even more Latin American constitutions, so I guess I'm a little surprised," Elkins, who had previously helped pen a book on the endurance of constitutions, told Hair Balls. "But of course, understanding this right the way it is, I can't be that surprised. Once a right appears, it generally increases in popularity. This [right] really bucks that trend."
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