It makes a decade now that the “Committee for the Bill of Rights” organizes the Bill of Rights Day: a grassroots initiative to be celebrated every December 15th, the day when the Bill of Rights − the first part of the Consititution of the United States of America − was ratified in 1791. The Bill of Rights Day celebration is not officially recognized as a public holiday in the United States, yet it holds a great degree of importance with the promoters of the initiative, as the Bill of Rights itself is what places many restraints to the powers of the President of the United States, the Congress and U.S. Government at large and establishes the basic individual and collective rights that the citizens of the United States enjoy. The Second Amendment, which provides for the right to keep and bear arms, is included in the Bill of Rights itself.
Rather than organizing a centralized event for what would be the eleventh year in a row, for 2012 the Committee for the Bill of Rights calls for a distributed, more widely spread and localized chain of celebrations all throughout the U.S. to be held in churches, community centers and private ventures next Saturday, December 15th: read the original Bill of Rights out loud from a parchment copy,
and then jointly discuss its health in roundtable style. Is it working? Are the rights it establishes intact? What are the threats to the precious rights it upholds, and what are the prospects for the future?
More than ever, America needs to recognize the Bill of Rights, and the community is in need for people of good will to enforce the BOR against those who might be trying to take the rights it established away from law-abiding citizens. Time is short, so act now to organize a Bill of Rights Day celebration in your community!