The First and Second Amendment
The Freedom of Speech, Religion, Press, Petition, and Assembly... Amendment 1
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances (First Amendment)."
This means that the American citizens have the freedom of speech, religion, press, petition, and assembly. The freedom of speech just simply means that you can say whatever you want wherever you want. This amendment does have a few limitations, like slander and libel. Slander is intentionally saying something false that intends on hurting someone mentally, or lessening someones dignity. Libel is basically like slander, except instead of an injurious farcial assault verbally, it is through words that are written down. People say what they want about the government whenever they want, just listen to Fox News. The reason why the framers of the constitution wrote down the freedom of speech is because the king, before the English Bill of Rights, was because the you were not able to say what you want. If you said anything bad about the king. My opinion on the freedom of speech is that it is very fair. The people of a country should have the right to talk about their country, corrupt, or not.
The next freedom that the first amendment protects is the freedom of religion. The freedom of religion means that you can have whatever religion you desire to follow. The government cannot, for example, make you follow christianity. People today can build churches, synagogue, etc. without the government repremanding them. The Framers of the Constitution decided that they needed to protect this right because the king of England would not let the people have there own religion. The king made the people follow whatever religion he said that they needed to follow, such as the Anglican Church of England. Because the Americans just ran away from a monarchy, they wanted to create a democracy, in this democracy, the people had their rights and the right of religion was one of them. My opinion of the right to religion is that it is very just. I think this because people come for different cultural backgrounds. From different backgrounds comes different religions. Many people have different religions, so it would not be fair if there was an established.
The next part of the first amendment is the freedom of the press. The freedom of the press is just a freedom that alows people to write whatever they want. The press does have one exception though, they cannot print libel. Like it was stated before, libel is something written down that is fracical and intends to hurt someone. A death threat for example would be libel. People are allowed to right about anything true about the government. In the English monarchy of olden times, the people had the right to print things, but if it said anything bad about a higher person, or heaven forbid the king, you could be punished. My opinion on the freedom of press is that it is very good to be able to type anything you want. People should know if there government was in debt or not, or if the president was going to be impeached.
The next right is the right to petition. The right petition means that you can complain to, or seek assistance from the government without the government repremanding you. People complain about the government all of the time. If you were daring enough to watch Fox News or MSNBC, it seems like there is a whole room of five year politicians complaining about everything. If you were to go up to a king and complain about how he is ruling his country, you would probably be beheaded. My opinion on the right to petition is that it should be allowed to complain about your government because if you tell the government officials what they're doing wrong, they can fix it.
The final freedom that the first amendment protects is the freedom of assembly, or the freedom of association. The freedom of assembly means that people can collectively come together and express something that they need, or simply, just to protest. Protesting in the olden times was usually a bloody battle. They were called revolutions. The King and his army would fight the peasants who were not happy. The Framers of the Constitution were very wise to put that in the constitution or this nation would be gone. My opinion on the right to assembly is that it is very fair to be able to protest. The people should be able to get together to tell the government that they are not happy.
The Second Amendment
The Right to Bear Arms... Amendment 2
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." (Second Amendment)
The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution states that the citizens of America have the right to bear arms. This means that the citizens can own a gun. This amendment is one of the most argued upon amendments today because people can abuse the amendment. In this amendmen, it is stating that the people may conceal a weapon for self-defense, but people are abusing the amendment by taking in an AK-47. This amendment does not cancel out any laws pretaining to murder, which means that just because you own a gun does not mean you can shoot random people with it. You may not just go out into a city with a gun and point it at people. Now you can see why people argue about it.
The history on this amendment is rather simple. The Framers decided to put this amendment in the constitution because of the king. The king, before the English Bill of Rights, had the power to disarm his people and make them weaker. After the Glorious Revolution, the English Bill of Rights passed a bill stating that the people had the right to bear arms. If it was important enough for a law to be passed preventing a king from harming his peasants, it should be in the constitution.
My opinion on the second amendment of the constitution is that people should be able to have a weapon in their house for safety so that if anybody actually does come into someone's house, they will not be completely defensless. People also should realize that they still can't go around shooting people with their gun. As you can see, there is a lot of confusion with this amendment, and I think that it will stay like that for a while.