The "loaded gun in the wrong hands" is terrorists claiming protection under our bill of rights. They can't get under our umbrella. It doesn't matter if they're persons. They're not "of the United States". Our umbrella is not for them. They have no IVth Amendment rights.
So you'd flip Washington's observation around. Rights are like fire, dangerous and fearful. Better keep them limited and under careful control, like the Founders tried to keep the government.
They can't get under our umbrella. It doesn't matter if they're persons. They're not "of the United States". Our umbrella is not for them. They have no IVth Amendment rights.
I just did a simple text search of the Constitution. Not once does "of the United States" follow "person". It does, significantly, follow "citizen" on several occasions. When the Founders (or later amenders, for that matter) wanted to limit something to American citizens, they did exactly that in so many words. No pussyfooting around about the meaning of person.
I would imagine you meant that as a reference to the Preamble. "We, the people of the United States." But notice what it says AFTER those words. Remember, taking isolated phrases, not even sentences but phrases, is sloganeering, not exegesis. So, what about them? They "do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Imagine a monarch saying, "I, the king, recognize the right to a trial by jury." Would that mean only the king gets a jury? Of course not. That would be silly. The people of the United States are the authority issuing the Constitution. If you take that authority seriously, you look at what it says, which leads us back to the fact that the Constitution prohibits the government from doing certain things. Not certain things to us (and the Founders would certainly have known how to say it that if that's what they wanted to say), but certain things, period.
"Hey, officer, he had out of state plates. The no passing zone doesn't apply to him."