Right to Bear Arms as a Small Business Owner, Assessment Example

The Bill of Rights is the fundamental document discussing the relationship between American citizens and their government. It guarantees each citizen certain rights about how they will be treated by the government. Amongst those rights guaranteed are the right to a fair trial, freedom of the press, religious freedom, and the right to bear arms. These rights are not parallel to each other, operating in vacuums from one another, but they interact. Each right is a protection against the infringement on each of the other rights. It is this system that makes the Bill of Rights the best system in the world for its citizens and the reason each right needs to be protected.

The Bill of Rights ultimately came about due to the Declaration of Independence. After the statement was made that the colonists were no longer going to be subject to British rule, there needed to be a basis for the government they were going to run themselves, provided in the Constitution and within that, the Bill of Rights. Therefore it can be concluded that the Bill of Rights is responsible for protecting the goals present in the initial Declaration. In particular the Declaration mentions certain inalienable rights, specifically the rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Therefore, it can be shown that the Bill of Rights is ultimately responsible for ensuring those inalienable rights.

These rights were inspired by the thinking of Enlightenment thinkers inspired by John Locke. In their writings, the pursuit of happiness was often replaced by the phrase “pursuit of property”. In the thinking responsible for the United States, happiness and property were so closely intertwined to be almost interchangeable. Being able to own property in the 18^th Century meant the owner could reap the rewards of the land through agriculture or some other proprietorship upon the land. By owning their own land, they were therefore in charge of their own economic fortune and free to pursue their own interests as they saw fit.

For these reasons, the American values are often seen through the actions of the business owners. Specifically small business owners who seek to own the methods by which they will make a living in life. They embody the very spirit of independence spoken about in the famous document that was the beginning of the country. America was declaring its independence from a country grounded on feudal beginnings. Those who owned the land used that power to shape the government they operated under. Essentially, the land owners controlled the majority of the population while also controlling the organization that oversaw their relationship. Declaring themselves independent from Great Britain was just as if they had declared their independence from the system where most people needed to turn over their lives and become dependent to the landowners who controlled their economic prospects.

These small business owners who own their own property are effectively pursuing their happiness based on their successful pursuit of property in their past. The happiness emerges due to the property they already own, the basis from which the other goal can be successful. Yet in some areas of the country there is reason to be worried about the ability of small business owners to secure their property in a way that allows them a chance at happiness. High crime areas, such as inner-cities, where small business owners can make a living on small pieces of land, can mean over burdened police forces who cannot effectively control the area themselves. Therefore, entrepreneurs, such as deli or liquor store owners, who operate in these areas must be afforded ways to protect themselves on their own.

This is an example were one part of the Bill of Rights manages to protect the rights afforded in the rest of the book. The Second Amendment states that a citizen’s right to bear arms shall not be infringed upon. This effectively guarantees them the right to guns or other weapons for the purpose of defense, specifically the ability to defend their own property. Some may argue that they can hire a security company, but this is likely out of the budget of at least some of the owners. The right to bear arms means they can guard and hold on the property that they use to pursue their happiness. By allowing them this protection of property, they also know that they will never have to choose between life and property under threat from a criminal, in fact due to the defense the firearm creates, they can have both. Therefore it is the very right essential to holding on to the fundamental rights mentioned before any others in the canon of American government documents.

Allowing people their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness should be the fundamental to the goals of the United States government. To do this, all rights must be protected, not those that are currently seen as important by the people temporarily in power. The people of the United States their Second Amendment rights, just as much as those rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, Fourth Amendments, and all the other rights contained in the constitution and its various amendments. Being able to properly protect their selves is guaranteed by the Second Amendment, and is important not just for this constitutional guarantee, but also for the protection of the other guarantees made in the constitution. This is especially important amongst small business owners, who embody the American Dream through their particular pursuit of happiness through property.