Suzanne Downing: Our constitutional rights endure only when Americans understand them and protect them

By SUZANNE DOWNING

Sept. 17, 2026 – Constitution Week begins today, Sept. 17, commemorating the day in 1787 when delegates in Philadelphia signed the United States Constitution.

Congress established Constitution Week in 1956, designating Sept. 17 through Sept. 23 as an annual opportunity for Americans to study the nation’s founding document. In 2004, Congress designated Sept. 17 as Constitution Day and Citizenship Day and required federally funded schools and federal agencies to provide educational programming about the Constitution.

The US Senate Historical Office describes the observance as an opportunity to examine how the Constitution has shaped the nation for more than two centuries.

Americans are proud of their Constitution. But do we understand it—or have we simply grown accustomed to the freedoms it protects?

We appreciate our rights, but how many of us can name them?

The Constitution has been amended 27 times. The first 10 amendments, ratified together in 1791, are known as the Bill of Rights.

The First Amendment protects freedom of religion, speech, the press, peaceful assembly and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances.

The Second Amendment protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms. That right protects all the other rights.

The Third prohibits the government from quartering soldiers in private homes during peacetime without the owner’s consent.

The Fourth protects against unreasonable searches and seizures and requires warrants to be supported by probable cause.

The Fifth provides several protections for people accused of crimes, including the right against self-incrimination and double jeopardy. It also guarantees due process and requires just compensation when private property is taken for public use.

The Sixth guarantees a speedy and public trial before an impartial jury, notice of the charges, the ability to confront witnesses and the assistance of counsel.

The Seventh preserves jury trials in many federal civil cases.

The Eighth prohibits excessive bail, excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishment.

The Ninth makes clear that listing certain rights in the Constitution does not mean the people possess no other rights.

The Tenth reserves to the states or the people powers that the Constitution neither delegates to the federal government nor prohibits to the states.

Those guarantees are often recited as a list. They establish boundaries between the citizen and the government.

The remaining 17 amendments tell much of the American story, and history.

Constitution Week is a time that reminds Americans to examine how government power is being exercised and whether constitutional boundaries are being respected.

That scrutiny applies to every constitutional right. Freedom of speech, religious exercise, privacy, property rights, firearms, due process and the protections afforded criminal defendants have all produced continuing disputes over the proper limits of government.

But most of all, it’s the right to bear arms that is always under pressure from governments, local and national. The Second Amendment remains the most vigorously contested and most continuously eroded. Licensing requirements, restrictions on particular firearms and accessories, and expansive federal regulations burden a right that the Constitution expressly says “shall not be infringed.” Democrats and leftists believe that regulations and restrictions are in order because criminals use weapons.

The federal government’s regulation of privately assembled firearms—commonly called “ghost guns”—illustrates that debate. In Bondi v. VanDerStok, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in March 2025 that certain weapons-parts kits and partially completed frames or receivers may fall within the federal Gun Control Act’s definitions of firearms. The case addressed whether the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had acted within authority granted by Congress; it did not decide a Second Amendment challenge to the regulation. The Supreme Court’s opinion drew opposition from gun-rights organizations that see the rule as an erosion of the right to build and possess firearms.

Constitutional questions are often decided through arguments about statutory language, agency authority, legal history and the practical application of a regulation. Citizens should understand not only the outcome of a case but also what the court did—and did not—decide.

A Constitution won’t enforce itself. Its durability depends upon elected officials who honor it, courts that apply it and citizens who know what it says and are willing to defend it.

During Constitution Week, every American should take a few minutes to read the document, and I don’t mean just the parts quoted by politicians.

Rights that are not understood are easier to weaken. Limits on government that are not defended are easier to cross. And a Constitution taken for granted can gradually become a Constitution remembered only as window dressing.

The Constitution belongs to the people. This week is a good time to get reacquainted with it.

Suzanne Downing is founder and editor of The Alaska Story and is a longtime Alaskan.