In America, rights aren’t “given”, they are “respected”. This is the same distinction made about the right-of-way while driving. Nobody ever has the right-of-way, but there are times when right-of-way must be yielded to others.

The US Constitution declares all of the rights that the US Government must not infringe upon. Nothing declares what rights Americans have. There is no external authority that “gives” Americans rights. They are inherent within us from birth. It is up to our systems of government to recognize and respect what has always been there.

The Second Amendment declares a right to self-defense that extends to defense against any threat including government agents. A modernizing of the 2A language would be, approximately - A free state is a critically important feature of civilization, therefore the people of that state possess the right to self-defense using the same level of technology as the state’s agents.

The offensive use of arms is not a basic human right, but the defensive use is.