Bill of Rights is there to protect us

Dave Downer, Henderson

Friday, Jan. 25, 2013 | 2:02 a.m.

Regarding Steve Orton’s letter to the editor, “Amendment is not about individuals”:

The gist of his argument is that the Second Amendment does not apply to individuals but rather to the state governments which, upon possibly finding the new central government not to their liking, “could break away, form their own militia and become an independent state.”

Funny, I was always taught that the Bill of Rights (the original 10 amendments) was about preserving the rights of the “people.” A close reading of all the Bill of Rights indicates that they, indeed, were added to the Constitution to spell out the immunities of individual citizens, who had suffered widespread British violation of civil rights before and during the recent Revolution.

And, oh, by the way, as to his argument that the Founding Fathers would, upon viewing all of our “modernity,” conclude that we didn’t need guns: I guess that, by his reasoning, since we have so many modern modes of communication and news (magazines, TV, the Internet, social media, etc.), we really don’t need the First Amendment freedom of speech and the press.