RPA releases Eighth Party Principle: Keep and Bear Arms

Jaime Land, Chair of Arkansas Young Republicans, wrote this week on the Party's eighth principle, the right to keep and bear arms. This op-ed is part of a series on the 10 principles of the RPA platform.

"No amendment is more contested or attacked than the Second Amendment to the Constitution. While the language seems straightforward, some interpret the simplest of sentences so distinctly from the rest of the document. Amid the jargon of academics and activist judges, rights are diminished to those of sportsmen rather than citizens. Or to the collective, rather than the individual. The right to keep and bear arms is infringed upon every day, sometimes by an Act of Congress, but mostly by a Progressive agenda that diminishes the power of the individual.

It’s no coincidence that the protection of the people’s right to keep and bear arms follows the First Amendment, which lays out what’s often called the “Five Freedoms.” I believe the Republican Party Platform summarizes this best when it states, 'Without the right to own and bear arms to serve as an individual’s hedge against government overreach and as a means for self-defense in our home, on our property, and of our person, none of our rights and freedoms can be guaranteed'...."