No, I would put it differently: that we will likely lose the rights we cannot protect. Seems the same statement but it is not, imo —

Your version, that we don’t have them unless we can protect them, holds the implication to absolve the rapist, murderer, or slaver their morally reprehensible actions. It’s to suggest that they didn’t violated our rights, it’s that we didn’t *have* those rights because we couldn’t stop the murderer or rapist. Therefore the evil actions aren’t evil or violating anyone’s rights.

The reverse is the truth. Everyone has those rights naturally, we are given by god, the universe, fundamental existence (whatever we call it). But if we cannot or are unwilling to protect them from evil people, we will lose them when evil knocks on our door. That doesn’t mean we didn’t have them, it just means they are easy to violate unless we understand their nature and do something about it.

In other words, the statement may be true in a practical sense, but the reverse framing is critically important from a moral sense.