Jeff Daniels co-starred in Dumb and Dumber with Jim Carrey. Daniels was only acting in the 1994 film. He wasn’t acting in his interview with Piers Morgan when he said the following:

“I’m one of the guys that goes back to the Second Amendment and just goes, ‘you know what, it was a different time, and now we’re into the Sandy Hooks and the — you know, all of that and whatever happened between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin that night, only they know.’

“One of them had a gun, and they’re real easy to get, and I’m one of the guys that would go, let’s — 90 percent of America said background checks, let’s do a better job of policing it, and I know the gun lobby — the gun enthusiasts get all bent out of shape about that, but it’s a different world now.”

Let’s start with the obvious. The Sandy Hook killer would not have been stopped by background checks. Neither would the numerous shooters in Chicago that have made the Windy City more dangerous than Afghanistan.

Criminals don’t care about laws. In fact, they like them because they know that most people will follow them, thus giving criminals like themselves the upper hand.

And what about George Zimmerman? I bet the gun he was carrying was lawfully registered. Again, if his testimony is true, the ownership and possession of that firearm probably saved his life. That’s what the Second Amendment is all about, and time has not changed that fact because people have not changed.

Once we go down the “we live in a different time” road, there’s no way to turn back. Why not make changes to the First Amendment. Actually, our government is already doing it when it comes to religion. Consider this from World magazine:

“This year: An Idaho Air Force base removes a painting called “Blessed Are the Peacemakers” because it references a Bible verse. The Air Force yanks off You-Tube a video tribute to first sergeants because its statement, ‘God created a first sergeant,’ is ‘highly suggestive of the Book of Genesis in the Bible and has Christian overtones.’

“Also this year: An Army Reserve training brief on hate groups declares that evangelical Christians and Roman Catholics are extremists as dangerous as al-Qaeda.”

 llinois Senator Dick Durbin wants to reimage the “freedom of the press” provision in the First Amendment. In an editorial he wrote for the Chicago-Sun Times, the Democrat senator wrote:

“Everyone, regardless of the mode of expression, has a constitutionally protected right to free speech. But when it comes to freedom of the press, I believe we must define a journalist and the constitutional and statutory protections those journalists should receive.”

Who are the “we”? Of course, Durbin means him and his other leftist political colleagues, the very people the First Amendment was designed to protect against.

Like Daniels, Durbin tries to make his case because we live in a new era. Technology has changed the way journalism is done. “Freedom of the press” is broader than newspapers and pamphlets when the First Amendment was drafted.

Can you imagine what Dick Durbin would have written (literally) about Gutenberg’s printing press? Tyrants hate contrary opinions. That’s why one of the first things they try to do when they get into power is to control the press.

Contrary to Daniels and Durbin, the Bill of Rights is just fine because it protects us from people like Daniels and Durbin.