1 June—Playing to his enthusiastic claque on Monday, Joe Biden opined that “the Second Amendment was never absolute.” That’s right, “the Second Amendment was never absolute.” That’s what Joe Biden said. That’s what President Joe Biden said. One would have expected Joe’s team of gutless interpreters to walk back that obvious constitutional solecism within minutes, as they’ve done with his affirmatively gutsy commitments to Ukraine and Taiwan. Funny how unelected functionaries have usurped the elected leader’s power.

Joe blathered on, “You couldn’t buy a cannon when the Second Amendment was passed. You couldn’t go out and buy a lot of weapons.” As we all know, Congress passed the Second Amendment, as part of the Bill of Rights, in 1789 and it was ratified by the states in 1791.

As it happens, contrary to Joe Biden’s assertion, you certainly could buy a cannon in 1789 and 1791—if you could afford one. And you can buy a cannon today—if you can afford one. Even in Connecticut, the Anti-Constitution State. If it’s a single-volley muzzle-loader made before 1898, you can buy a cannon without regulation—if you can afford one. Even in Connecticut, the Anti-Constitution State.

On the other hand, Joe is right on the mark about not being able to go out and buy a lot of weapons in 1789—only because a lot of weapons hadn’t even been thought of back then. But if any weapons or arms were available, you certainly could buy them—if you could afford them. And, if you had the know-how, you could even make weapons of mass destruction without fear the feds or state police would come after you. Ah, the good old days.

So is Joe Biden under the impression that only the Second Amendment was never absolute because it forbade infringing on the right to keep and bear arms—not just firearms—or that the whole Constitution was never absolute? He’d like us to believe it’s only the Second Amendment, to be sure, but it’s really the whole Constitution.

That’s where the amendments come in, including the Bill of Rights.

Article V (as opposed to Amendment V) details in typically arcane, intentionally incomprehensible prose how the Constitution can be amended—by essentially adding provisions to its text: the Amendments. The process is purposively more difficult than complex, so in 235 years there have been only 27 Amendments—17 after the Bill of Rights.

The Constitution is essentially an enumeration and codification of rights. Every Amendment has added or enhanced rights. Except the 18^th Amendment, damned and dreaded Prohibition, which banned the manufacture, transportation, and sale—but not the consumption—of so-called intoxicating liquors. After all, if you couldn’t make, ship, or sell the booze, the law didn’t have to proscribe your drinking it. Typical. The 18^th Amendment was ratified by the states in 1919 and officially went into effect in 1920. It was repealed by the 21^st Amendment in 1933. Surprising it wasn’t repealed sooner.

Constitutional booze prohibition was repealed because it was an ill-conceived anomalous aberration from the start and was bound to be ineffective and counterproductive. Same with constitutional firearms prohibition or limitation. It’s certainly been mooted, along with other nonsense like reviving the effort to ratify the superfluous—well-intentioned but totally unnecessary—Equal Rights Amendment. But the Second Amendment is not likely to be repealed or vitiated any time soon.

For your edification, here’s Article V, how to amend the Constitution:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.