The 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision that categorized gun ownership as an individual right actually hurts our liberties. The Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution at the behest of states that feared, as many of us do today, the increasing power of a federal government over the power of state governments. Despite what some gun owners and gun groups say, the Second Amendment pertains to power, not rights. It is not about the right to keep/own guns. Individual rights that the states' rights supporters of the late 18th century feared were endangered by a strong federal system were addressed in the First Amendment: speech, assembly, press and religion. If the Constitution were to address the issue of gun ownership as an individual right on this level, it would have placed that protection there, in the First Amendment. In the power struggle over ratification of the Constitution, the Second Amendment is about the states' right to regulate -- allow, with safeguards -- gun ownership. The states feared that the new federal government could come in with force and compel them to follow federal laws that could harm individual freedoms. One way to ensure this does not occur is to ensure that, "A well regulated Militia" be maintained -- not by the federal government but by the states, a militia that is obviously "necessary to the security of a free State." That last word, "State," does not mean the nation. The primary allegiance of many Americans of the day was to their state governments. In this context, therefore, "a free State" meant Georgia, or South Carolina, or New York. It did not mean the United States. The fear, therefore, was that the power to control that entity -- the militia -- that was "necessary to the security" of the state would be taken from the states and given to this new, more powerful federal government. They saw the Second Amendment as being key to keeping this right on the state level -- where government had the greatest impact on their lives and needs. In its recent ruling declaring the Second Amendment to be under the aegis of individual rights, the Supreme Court struck a blow against states' rights. The court took the regulation of militias -- and, thereby, guns -- away from the states and placed it with the federal government. In essence, the Supreme Court did exactly what the states' rights proponents over 200 years ago feared in the new Constitution; they subjugated the power of the state government.