The Second Amendment and the Origin of Rights

Your possession of the right to defend your life with appropriate means is not conferred by the State and would not be affected by repeal of the Second Amendment. That right is no more conferred by the State than the right to life from which the right to self-defense follows.

The same holds for all of the rights specified in the Bill of Rights.

Many conservatives say that our rights "come from God." I don't deny it. But in terms of political  tactics, it is probably a mistake to affirm it. It is enough to say that our rights do not come from the State. For if you bring God into the discussion, you risk alienating those atheists who are otherwise open to persuasion. 

If I want to persuade you of something, I will get nowhere if I employ premises that you do not accept. So if my otherwise open-minded interlocutor gets the impression that the affirmation of natural rights will commit him to the existence of God, if he gets the impression that if  rights do not come from the State, then they must come from God, then we risk losing an ally in the fight against our political enemies.

We need all the allies we can get. The Coalition of the Sane and the Reasonable must be broad and big-tented  to defeat the forces of nihilism.  

Tactically, it suffices to say that our rights are rooted in rerum natura, in the nature of things, and leave it to the philosophers to wrestle with the question as to what exactly this means and whether there can be natural rights without divine support.