You can’t license the Bill of Rights.

Our Founders couldn’t have imagined such chilling conceit. How can a government appoint itself Supreme Dispenser of the very freedoms the writers of the Constitution said were God-given? It can’t. That’s why Americans will not tolerate a government that tries to license the Second Amendment.

No more than your neighbor would tolerate a license to speak freely, or Methodists would tolerate a license to worship, or this newspaper would tolerate a license to publish its opinions.

The Bill of Rights can’t be parceled out on bureaucratic whim through prior restraint.

And don’t be fooled by the misleading notion that licensing gun owners is as innocent as registering automobiles.

First, registering cars doesn’t pretend to prevent accidents or stop drunk drivers. Its sole purpose is to create a stream of tax revenue.

Second, it certainly doesn’t keep a million or more unlicensed drivers off the road.

Third, driving a car is a convenient privilege. Owning a firearm is a sacred constitutional right.

And everyone knows where photo-ID registration leads. Government with the power to license a freedom also has the power to deprive people of that freedom.

Without exception, history proves that firearm registration ultimately leads to that inevitable knock on the door and the confiscation of guns. It has already happened (with tragic results) in England and Australia; it’s under way in South Africa and Canada; and it’s now a pet political refrain here.

But it’s just the first step toward abolishing the Second Amendment. Every scheme in the gun-hater’s law bag is promoted as an end in itself that might provide some perceived public good. When it doesn’t, it always leads to another scheme and then another.

This one must stop now. Licensing access to the Bill of Rights will never be acceptable to Americans who care about their freedoms.

Wayne LaPierre is executive director of the National Rifle Association.