This letter is in response to "Individuals had their rights before 14th Amendment" (July 9).

I am responding to a woeful misreading of my letter.

Mr. Arp encouraged me to read The Founders' View of the Right to Bear Arms by David E. Young. Upon review of Young's credentials, it is clear that he is neither an acclaimed (or trained) historian nor a prominent constitutional law professor. I was only addressing the U.S. Constitution and not state constitutions. There is overwhelming historiographical evidence that the founders were concerned, especially with the federal Constitution, with checking the overreach of democracy. As such, the Bill of Rights did not grant individual rights, but states' protection against the federal government.

It should also be noted that the legislative history of the Fourteenth Amendment overwhelmingly substantiates my view, and the view of Yale constitutional law professor Akhil Amar. That view is that the Fourteenth Amendment was meant to incorporate the individual rights against the states, especially since southern state governments were violating the individual rights of former slaves and poor whites.

Saalim Abdul Carter

Class of 2007