Tuesday, August 25, 2020

Where's the Biblical Citation for the "God-Given Right" to Brandish Guns?

During last night's opening session of the Trump Crime Family Reunion that is officially known as the Republican National Convention, the McCloskeys of St. Louis, Missouri, spoke about their "God-given right" to brandish firearms at Black Lives Matter protestors outside their home.


This is not the first time that this outlandish claim has been addressed on this blog. Last September I asked about Press Secretary (#2 of 4) Sarah Huckabee Sanders' tweet stating that "we have guns because it's our God-given right enshrined in the Constitution." And back in June 2012, in a discussion of a Texas Republican Party Platform with a number of very strange planks, I also asked about the origins of a claim that Texans had a right to own guns and "their God-given right to carry that firearm" (incidentally, when you see how much bizarre crap the Texas GOP was able to cram into its platform, it was probably good that the national party punted on the process at the 2020 RNC). 

So, to get to the point, there's still an open question. Where in the Bible is this "God-given right" enunciated? I was able to find a September 2019 article in Politico from National Review editor Rich Lowry titled "Yes, Gun Ownership Is a God-Given Right" that cites John Locke and Noah Webster and the Declaration of Independence, but no sources dating back to the Torah, Koran, or Bible. Maybe we have to get America's leading biblical scholar, the Bible-verse-tweeting @MarcoRubio, involved to find the answer to this nagging question. If he can't find the biblical basis, then maybe Republicans should stop repeating this lie.


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