"COLLECTIVE RIGHT"

“Collective Right” Ends Today

This is first and foremost a political action committee dedicated to repealing the ban on firearm possession by cannabis patients, but it is our related purpose to shine a spotlight on the lie that enables it. The majority of the information that debunks this lie is newly unearthed, but even the portion which has circulated for decades never gets seen by the audience it needs to reach most—so it’s essential to raise a sum that's simply too enormous for the media to ignore.

Before getting to the evidence, however, it can’t be emphasized strongly enough how supporters of moderate arms regulation will benefit from helping to spread the truth. Those exasperated by the unwavering resistance of gun owners will be stunned by the progress that results from sharing a foundation of reality, and since the same faction generally also wants voters to see Donald Trump as a threat to our nation’s founding principles, it’s crucial to realize that many independent gun owners can’t take such concern for the Constitution seriously. They may not keep up with details of the case against Trump, but they certainly see anti-gun zealots raping that document before their eyes.

As for how a blatant falsehood could come to be so widely accepted, primarily to blame is the misconception that support for arms rights is somehow inherently conservative. This causes many on the left to reject any criticism of gun control without considering its merits—though the figures for political ideology and gun ownership actually reveal a nation of 16% conservative gun owners and 14.5% combined liberal/moderate gun owners. There is clearly still an imbalance today, but Americans of the past were fully aligned in this area.

One can only speculate that today’s division emerged as the left concentrated in cities, where they came to associate weapons exclusively with crime, but we know for certain what everyone used to believe because it is thoroughly documented. From presidents and Supreme Court justices to textbook authors and newspaper editors, over 300 quotes are about to provide a direct view into the past that “collective right” charlatans don’t want anyone to see. The aura of credibility they’ve obtained through positions at colleges and universities makes it easy for them to let the public (including judges and lawmakers) assume they provide a full and honest account of history, but this is far from the case.

Their writings often raise a few Founding-era quotes to dismiss as “out of context” or “cherry-picked,” but every statement here links to its source. There is no way to prove that pro-“collective right” statements weren’t omitted, of course, so its proponents are asked to publicly submit any from before 1874—no earlier example has been found so far, and even this one is of questionable value, being the words of a panicked governor about to be overthrown by an insurrectionist mob that falsely claimed constitutional protection for its treasonous activities. Their silence, or at best their discovery of another example or two from the 1870s, will then confirm the truth. The more we raise, the bigger a story this becomes, and the less plausible it is for them to deny being aware of the challenge.

What we have done is search for relevant quotes starting in 1789, when the Second Amendment was drafted, as earlier statements are far more uncommon and made by a very limited group of people, and are also by nature generally more vague and open to interpretation. These are found mostly in the records of Congress, the Internet Archive, Google Books, and Genealogy Bank. The latter is a subscription service, but you can sign up for a free trial.

A quick scan through the quotes is enough to prove at the very least that “collective right” was far from universally accepted for most of history, but a breakdown of the propagandists’ tactics provides context that will lessen the confusion for those who have been deceived. This is highly recommended reading even for those who already know the truth, however, as it raises some points which should help simplify a debate that has Americans talking completely past each other. Some important guidance follows, but you can also skip right to the quotes.

A few bits of guidance before diving in:

Due to the instant availability of original sources and the sheer volume of material, more edits have been made for the sake of conciseness and readability than would be acceptable in an academic paper—ellipses, brackets, and altered capitalization are used frequently to link sentences and sentence fragments while always maintaining 100% of the original meaning. These linked elements are generally found within the same paragraph, but may be a full page or more from each other. Some minor changes were also made to archaic/incorrect spelling and grammar.
Many of the full original quotes convey that the Second Amendment did not restrain state governments at the time, and most of those portions have been omitted for length since this can be addressed up front. A more thorough explanation is available here, but in brief, this was the prevailing (but not exclusive) view until the Supreme Court finally validated it in 1875 (this was then reversed in 2010).
Some authors erroneously use “privilege” and “right” interchangeably and/or refer to a right as “granted” rather than “protected,” but never in a context where they are trying to make some distinction among these terms.
“Collective right” material starts appearing often in the early 1900s, but the quotes extend through 1968 to show how many people rejected or were unaware of it even after its invention. Only with the passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968, which failed to impact skyrocketing homicide rates and was quickly followed by widespread calls to ban handguns, did “collective right” explode into mainstream acceptance.
While the majority of these statements explicitly reference the right to bear arms and/or the Second Amendment, some authors merely say something to the effect of “The Bill of Rights protects the private rights of all Americans.” If “collective right” had actually existed, such statements would be followed by words like “except, of course, for the Second Amendment” or “including the Second Amendment, despite what some claim.” This never happens until well into the 1900s.
Party membership is not listed, because today’s major parties were so ideologically different in the past and some authors belonged to unfamiliar now-defunct parties. Other, more specific indications of an author’s ideology are presented when relevant. Regarding such links to voteview.com, hovering over the colored bar of the chart reveals the information used, and different sessions of Congress can be selected from the dropdown menu.
Every quote is a single hyperlink to the source, but the author/source information may contain multiple links. Most relevant excerpts pull up directly, but it may be necessary to search within the page or use the location instructions at the end of the quote. Genealogy Bank links sometimes direct to the beginning of the article, and if no highlighting is visible just click “Find” next to the search box at the top.