MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews has a problem with people who think the right to bear arms is a God-given right that precedes the Constitution.
WATCH:
“Well you know what the Republicans say in their platform?” Matthews asked during his show “Hardball” on Thursday night. “The right to bear arms precedes the Constitution. It’s a god-given, sort of theological right. They treat this like religion.”
“I don’t know how to explain it,” Matthews bemoaned. “It’s a sort of essential religious notion to them.”
In the Declaration of Independence, the founding fathers indicated that humans are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” — a concept otherwise known as natural law. The Constitution thus protects the rights that humans already have — it does not give them those rights. (RELATED: How are gun rights God-given and inalienable?)
Matthews isn’t the only MNSBC anchor to misinterpret the Constitution. Last week, Chuck Todd asserted that Alabama Republican Roy Moore doesn’t believe in the Constitution because he believes rights come from God, not government. (VIDEO: Chuck Todd: Roy Moore Doesn’t Believe In Constitution Because He Thinks Rights Come From God)