This letter responds to "Legal gun registration prevents tragic misuse" (July 3).

As a liberal, I strongly believe in gun regulation, but Washington D.C.'s law was too expansive and did not pass the constitutional test. The Second Amendment, when viewed through the Fourteenth Amendment, becomes an individual right.

Historically, this reading was only a collective right prior to the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. Yale constitutional law Professor Akhil Reed Amar argues convincingly in his book, The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction, that the Reconstruction Congress was far more concerned about individual rights.

The Bill of Rights not only guarantees states protection from the abuses of the federal government, but also insures protection of individuals from the abuses of state governments. An individual's right to bear arms was essential for Southern blacks because the police during the 1860s and the Jim Crow era could not always be trusted to protect black citizens from white riders looking to lynch.

Prior to the Reconstruction Congress, the Bill of Rights was about protecting states. Now all those rights are individual rights and should be interpreted as such.

Saalim Abdul Carter

Class of 2007