Kevin P. Nelson

Minot

It would seem that few elected officials and even members of the judicial system have studied or even read the U.S. Constitution. Following are three examples of this.

First is Amendment 1, commonly called “Freedom of Religion” which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….” The first immigrants to this country came here for this fact. The Pope and the King of England made it mandatory to believe as they thought you should. Wars were fought and people tortured and killed for violating these directives.

However, Congress did not pass any laws, but the judicial system interpreted this to mean that you can’t have any religious references in school nor any religious articles on public property. Government funds are withheld from religious schools to enforce these rulings. Atheism thus became or is becoming the state religion. Initiating the passage of laws is a right born only by the legislative branch of government. No law was passed by Congress, but the courts by rulings made the restriction of religion the law.

The second amendment, known as the “Right to Bear Arms” states “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Infringed means lessened or encroached upon.

Things have changed since the writing of the constitution. At that time, the U.S. had no real standing army, making a militia a necessity, each person bringing their own arms. Arms at that time would have been swords, sabers, spears, axes, knives, pitch forks, shovels, etc., which are still common today, but otherwise were limited to muzzle loading rifles and pistols as well as black powder cannons and grenades.

Today we have a standing army and automatic weapons, howitzers, and other long-range weapons, airplanes, tanks, flame throwers, nuclear weapons, etc. The issue seems to be not the primitive weapons, which can also kill, or the most destructive weapons listed, but only the automatic rifles and pistols. I personally hunt but don’t see that any private citizen has a need for an automatic or even semiautomatic weapon. Unfortunately, it will take an amendment to the constitution that would specifically list banned weapons to resolve this issue.

Amendment 10 has been ignored in many instances. It states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

The most important current issue that this affects is the right to abortion. As the right to determine when life begins is not mentioned in the Constitution, this is left to the states. It is often stated that Congress should pass a law specifying the right to abortion on demand and/or specifying limitations on it. However, the legality of abortion must be left to the states unless the Constitution is amended.

The writers of the constitution did a miraculous job, but unfortunately, could not predict events of the future.