Quiet, Dr Deth. If the gummint figures out that the First Amendment wasn’t legitimately passed, we’ll all be in biiiiiiiig troub.
OTOH, that could mean that the NRA’s arguments fall apart and we don’t have the right to bare arms, either. What about slavery? And how about the repeal of Prohibition? Since the repeal amendment was illegal, do we still have Prohibition? Or since the Prohibition Amendment itself had minor flaws, do we not have not having Prohibition?
Congress’s power to levy income tax derives not from the 16th amendment but from the Constitution itself. The federal government levied income taxes during the civil war, well before the 16th amendment passed.
IIRC the 16th amendment was the product of a Supreme Court decision which did not consider a landlord’s income from rent as taxable income. The 16th amendment decided to clarify the scope of the Congressional power beyond the interpretive power of the SCOTUS