By Timothy Wheeler, MD

For almost a decade now Washington, D.C. has been the epicenter of the civil rights struggle of our time—the fight to exercise our right to keep and bear arms. At a meeting in the District of Columbia’s St. Augustine’s Catholic Church last month, newly elected D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser assured her audience:

 “You have a mayor who hates guns. If it was up to me, we wouldn’t have any handguns in the District of Columbia. I swear to protect the Constitution and what the courts say, but I will do it in the most restrictive way as possible.”

Does the mayor of Washington, D.C. have any idea that she has just declared herself an enemy of one of our enumerated civil rights? Which other items in the Bill of Rights does she consider disposable?

Would she go down the list of our rights in that great founding document, maybe something like this?

“You have a mayor who hates the right to a jury trial. If it was up to me, I would decide if you’re guilty, without the need for a trial in the District of Columbia. I swear to protect the Constitution and what the courts say, but I will do it in the most restrictive way as possible.”

For too many elected and unelected officials, the Constitution is an afterthought, if they think of it at all. And too many consider the oath they take a promise they can break with no consequences. In this series we hope to show just how serious the sworn oath to uphold the Constitution is, and that public officials can’t pick and choose which civil rights they will uphold.

 

—Timothy Wheeler, MD is director of Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership, a project of the Second Amendment Foundation.

All DRGO articles by Timothy Wheeler, MD.