Editor,

Mr. Thompson is mistaken in his second guessing of the authors of the “”Bill of Rights” (May 6 letters). Predatory Indians were well in hand in the colonies by the 1780s. The British overlords, however, were still fresh in the colonists’ mind, and until after the war of 1812 were a threat. Not wanting to live under the same circumstances and knowing human nature and history, they chose to protect individual freedom and give each man the means to protect that freedom.

Once the Constitution was ratified, the concern was that it did not spell out the rights each person had to protect themselves from government intrusion. The Bill of Rights was the codification of the protections we have to keep government at bay.

So, Mr. Thompson, Native American’s may have caused the colonist’s concern, but were not the reason for the Second Amendment.

Fred Wilferth

Coupeville