Prince Harry shows he prefers the Second Amendment to the First
Tom Rogan
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Prince Harry adopts a notoriously aggressive stance toward media coverage he dislikes. He has even gone so far as to say the First Amendment is “bonkers.”
But on a different albeit relevant note to the above, Harry is suing the U.K. government for what he claims is its unlawful removal of his automatic access to an armed police security detail during his visits to the United Kingdom. Full-time senior members of the royal family are provided armed security by members of the Metropolitan Police’s Protection Command. But because Harry spends most of his time in the United States and rarely acts in an official royal capacity, a U.K. security committee downgraded his automatic security provisions after he relocated to the U.S. in 2020.
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Harry’s lawyers said this was unlawful. Harry even appears to have staged security incidents, such as his claim of being in a “near catastrophic car chase” in New York City, to boost the credibility of his claimed need for government security. And in a court statement by his lawyer on Thursday, Harry observed, “The U.K. is my home. The U.K. is central to the heritage of my children and a place I want them to feel at home as much as where they live at the moment in the U.S. That cannot happen if it’s not possible to keep them safe when they are on U.K. soil. I cannot put my wife in danger like that and, given my experiences in life, I am reluctant to unnecessarily put myself in harm’s way too.”
This is an interesting statement. The direct inference of Harry’s claim that “it’s not possible to keep” his family safe on U.K. soil unless they are provided with armed security is that Harry believes his family is safe residing on U.S. soil.
Yet Harry and his family do not receive a U.S. government protective detail. While the family did receive a Diplomatic Security Service protective detail for a time, it was rightly removed by the Trump administration on the basis of unjustified need and excessive cost. The obligation, if there is any, to provide the prince and his family with a government security detail falls on the U.K. government. Since then, Harry and his family have been protected by a private security team in the U.S. That’s the key point here.
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Because what makes a private security team in the U.S. different from a private security team in the U.K. is simple. Namely, while appropriately licensed private security teams in the U.S. can carry firearms, private security teams in the U.K. cannot. Harry’s U.S. security team is known to be armed. In contrast, private ownership of firearms is highly restricted in the U.K., and private ownership of sidearms is totally restricted. In essence, then, what makes Harry feel safer in the U.S. than he does in the U.K. is not his access to a government protective detail but rather his access to an armed security detail per se.
Put another way, Harry appears far more favorable to the Second Amendment than the one preceding it.