Getting closer, though it is the powers of government that are derived through the consent of the governed, not our rights. Our rights are inherent to us as human beings. We create governments to SECURE (not grant, allow, define or otherwise derived through government) our rights, so that no person or group of persons, nor foreign government, nor domestic government, can interfere with our rights. And the need for enumerating the right to keep and bear arms was derived from that same section, in which it is stated: "... whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish such government ..." and under the later clause: "But when a long chain of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their Right, it is their duty, to throw off such government...." The above, coupled with the knowledge that no government is ever going to voluntarily relinquish the unjust powers it has usurped over the people, and that the act of throwing off a despotic government will, almost invariably, come only through force of arms, is the basis for specifying the right to keep and bear arms in our Bill of Rights, so that we will always retain the ultimate means - use of force - to secure our rights.
