ML Berg

Minot

With all the talk about our various constitutional rights, let’s keep in mind our three primary rights. These are the right to life, the right to liberty and the right to pursue personal happiness. These three rights ought to be at the top of every American’s list.

The Second Amendment does exist. But it is the “second” amendment, and it is also secondary in the sense that that right should follow – in order of importance – the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

By the way, the rights of victims of gun violence ought to be included in every discussion of the Second Amendment. If people are murdered with guns, where is their right to life? If people are killed or maimed with guns, where is their right to liberty in the sense they were accustomed to liberty before the gun violence? If people are maimed or suffer PTSD because of gun violence, how can they pursue happiness as they once did?

If people put constitutional rights in their proper order – life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness first, and second amendment rights second – I would hope our discussions of our constitutional rights would bear better fruit, even under these current drought conditions.