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democracy. >> we're joined now by david bob, the president of the bill of rights institute. welcome to washington journal. >> wonderful to be with you, kimberly. >> can you tell us about your organization. what you do and why it was needed to set it up. >> it teaches history and civics. we equip young people, especially, to be able to live out the principles of the declaration, of the constitution, so that they can see a just and free society come about. it's important to learn about the past, but it's also important to take the principles of our founding and put them into practice and that's why we started and teachers have a hard job when it comes to the classroom and talking about how we've been challenged. so we have to learn from our past and think about these idea, these idea don't come naturally to us, maintaining a free and just society is a

skill and practice so we will start helping teachers come alongside them in this very important task of teaching history and civics, and we're excited we have 77,000 across the country who rely on the free curriculum and the bill of rights and offers. >> let's talk today about the bill of rights today. can you just remind us in the view what the bill of rights is and when and why, a day to honor it was established. >> the bill of rights is the 10th amendment of the constitution. the story is complex, but to boil it down, when the constitution was being debated, and the idea that maybe we should have a supreme law of the land, the people across this country looked at, well, what do we want to put into it. when you write things down, it tends to memorialize them. we hadn't had an effective constitution up to that point so there was a constitutional convention, four long hot months in the summer of 1787

and a bunch of delegates got together and debated this and what they started to see as their negotiations ended was that there was an emerging group, a minority voice to be sure, but a pretty loud minority that said we need to protect individual rights more in this document. so, the people who debated that thing sent it out to the states for ratification and there was a pretty bruising battle and a lot of the states said we're not going to approve it unless there's a more concrete state about what kind of rights human beings have, and take it back to the declaration of independence, that document that declared our independence, rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. and there was a line and what the people across the country said you've got to do better. so some of the politicians initially who were not in favor of the bill of rights, notably, alexander hamilton and james madison started hearing the

will of the people and it was madison who was very careful, who was attentive, he assembled a list. the list was more than 200 in length and then they took that list and started saying, all right, we're going to have to whittle it down. if we're going to have a kind of negotiated settlement to this whole thing, what list would make sense t got down to about 20 then it became 12, the 12 were sent out to the states for ratification and the 12 came back with 10. so, three through 12 were adopted and on december 15th, 1791, the state of virginia became the last to-- that was needed for ratification and the bill of rights became the first 10 amendments of the united states constitution. >> now then according to this year's amburg constitution only 17 respondents to name the

rights guaranteed under the first amendment and numbers couldn't name any and a when asked to name the rights guaranteed b the first endment, 74% new it included freedom of spch and 39% knew it included freedom of religion and 29%, freedom of the press, 27%, right to assembly, only 11% knew they had the right to petition the government under the first amendment. why do you think that people aren't more aware of what both this amendment and some of the others in the bill of rights actually have in them? >> one of the things that i've seen over the years, it may be particularly true in washington d.c. where we are now, is that the sense of the constitution being for the people, of the people and by the people is lost a little bit. it's complex. there's a lot of court cases, a lot of complexity to it. at the end of the day though, it's not the province of attorneys and judges, it's a document that if you sit down and read it takes about a half

hour. we've made it a little bit more complicated than we've needed and we're also not devoting enough time in our schools, for example, an elementary school teacher has maybe, if she's lucky, 20 minutes per week to talk about these things. so we need to start with the stories, start with the declaration of independence, it said something that no government in the history of the world has said before, which was that people have rights because they're people, because they're human beings, and it took us longer than we wanted. it took a long time before we extended those rights to all people in this country, but we laid down a marker and said you as a human being have the right to life, liberty and property, right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness and that's the class that we're on today. and one thing i'll note to the rather abysmal numbers, we don't find that young people want to stay in that state of ignorance and we ought not to blame them or our teachers.

what we have to do better is model why it's important, and civics is something very abstract, out there, doesn't apply to me. make them to apply to everyday life and promise that the declaration of the independence, the promise of the constitution, the promise of the bill of rights is something for their everyday life. >> and speaking how this matters to our current state of affairs, you had a recent opinion piece with the headline, election highlights need, for and warnings about civic education. what exactly are these warnings? >> well, i think one of the things that i just mentioned, the need for more time in our schools, we have a challenging system in this country, but it's a good one and that is that education is local. that means that there's a lot of decision makers and we're negotiating these decisions all the time at the local level. think of it. parents are the first educators, they can entrust their kids then to different

schools and teachers complement the work that parents do in history and civics. how do we make sure that every child in america is growing up with a sense of what this country is about? that's a big challenge and the further we get away from the local level, the more that washington d.c. or even state capitals, governors insert themselves into these things in a political or an ideological way, the worse off we're going to be. one thing we've seen, we're more polarized and more divided than we actually are. americans actually anchor around the declaration and the constitution, but we perceive that we're very, very divided and when politicians season that and use civics as a means to kind of stoke disagreement, that's a problem. what we don't want, i don't think, is for washington d.c. to take these things over, and to say, here is the kind of official civics we're going to have from the government. that's never been a part of our government and i think it's a real strength.

for example, in journeys globally, we've seen the toppling of the dictator in syria, but even in regimes na aren't dictatorial, oftentimes a big fight over who gets the right to textbooks. when you have that fight, what you have to do, you have to reduce the value of the civics and history. and people say that's the politicians and what they want me to think. civics and history has to be about people taking these ideas, making them their own, and then putting them into practice in everyday life. the more that we make this an ideological or a political thing, the worse off we're going to be. >> i'll point out that some other resources for teachers, when it comes to education, come from c-span directly, on c-span.org. we have a program called c-span classroom, which includes free video based materials for social studies teachers on various civics related topics, you know, how do you think,

especially in our politically divided environment, civics might be able to help bridge that divide? >> you know, we've been pleased to partner, and the resources are -- nothing is better than primary source documents. when you ask americans what do you anchor on, it's that sense that the declaration and the constitution do matter. the way to bridge political divides is by having conversations that matter, by not shirking that and ducking them. two out of five young people in this country who are in high school feel uncomfortable disagreeing with their friends and their peers in the classroom. that's got to change. what we have to do, i think, is disagree better. let young people know that if they disagree on matters of significance, it doesn't mean you're going to lose your friends, and for young people to take that seriously, they're going to have to see more models of that kind of thing. it's the kind of deep civility. it's a civil discourse and it's a valuing of free speech that

says it's okay to talk about religion and politics, and financial things. you have to do it in a way in which you're respecting the other person and bringing these controversial subjects into the classrooms when you anchor on primary source documents, it kind of gives a new footing to those conversations where young people can say, i do want to see your viewpoint, it may be different than mine and that's okay. i want my perspective to be challenged by yours, we're sharper and critical thinking results from that. >> we're taking your calls for david bob of the bill of rights, 202-748-8001, for republicans. democrats, 8000, for independents, 8002 and also tend us questions via text or social media and you received a text message comment, really, from diane in morristown, new jersey, that says all americans should be able to pass the citizenship test.

what do you think of that? >> you know, i think it's as a mental kind of model, it's the right idea, for those of you who don't-- aren't familiar with this, there's 100 questions, it's about pretty basic things related what it means to be a citizen and given to those who want to become citizens through the naturalization process. there have been efforts to institute this as a kind of mandate in states, i don't know that we have to do that. but i think that all americans, if you just google it and take the test, you'd see that it's a worthwhile exercise because it's trying to anchor you on the things that really matter. now, it's important to know those facts and figures, but we also have to know why. and that's something that the naturalization test does not get into as much as we'd like. great civics, great history learning, goes to the deep questions of inquiries, and it also points to the kind of point, counter point, a verbal back and forth, the intellectual that doesn't have to be disagreeable. so it's a good start, but i

think we can do a lot better for all americans with the kind of critical thinking that we see from the life long commitment to civics. >> before we get to the callers and maybe this is a difficult question for you, but of the amendments in the bill of rights, which one is the most fascinating to you? >> you know, i think it's hard not to be fascinated by the 9th and 10th amendments. they don't get as much attention maybe today, but taken together, they're kind of the taproot of what we might see as popular sovereignty, the idea that people rule in this country. think of what humility it took, you draft the constitution and send it out to the people. that's not typically what happens in other country. a lot of countries, it's the elites who rule and we never see the change from that. the founders say could we get away from that kind of system in which accident enforced rules today. could we be ruled by rye flexion and choice.

and don't the 9th and 10th amendments shea say that they retain rights. >> enumeration of the constitution in certain rights shall not be used to deny or disparage other rights retained by the people and the 10th amendment, the powers not delegated to the united states by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively or to the people. >> you take the 9th amendment, one of the big debates over the bill of rights was, well, wait, what if we start writing them down if we miss one or don't write down everything, will people think that they don't have those rights? that was some of the objections and that was a reasonable objection. if you look to history, the soviet union had a beautiful bill of rights, many of the tyrannies that exist around the globes do. just writing down rights don't

put them into practice. people have to believe this. em we don't have a confirmation for the right to get in your car and i can today drive into maryland and pennsylvania and keep going, i do have that right. and what's important is the declaration's promise, because we're human beings, they inher in us as human beings. the 10th amendment is a restriction, and restricting and saying to the federal government, you can't interfere. you can't overly involve yourself in the affairs of human beings because the founders again saw, i think it's been confirmed by history, that too strong a government, too invasive a government is going to be a bad thing, right? when they were on this, what happened they could search their property for any reason at all as colonists. that's invasive as what power means. the 9th and 10th amendments are

restrictions on power, on governmental power, but they're a great boon for the power of individuals. >> and you've made reference to basically what's in the fourth amendment, right? >> that's right. >> in one says the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seires shall not be violated and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause supported by oath or affirmation and describing the place to be searched and the person or things to be seized. let's go ahead and get to your calls. i'm sure people have lots of questions here. we'll start in crab orchard, west virginia on our line for independents. good morning. >> good morning. what i wanted to say is that your guest and just about everyone else always speaks of the inalienable rights that are mentioned in our declaration, but that's an incomplete

sentence. it's almost as if it's out of context. the entire statement says that those rights are gifts endowed by our creator. that may be the most important part of the statement and that's all i wanted to bring up is people don't remember that our rights are gifts from god, thank you. >> thank you, aoki, that's a great observation and you're absolutely right. the declaration itself has four references to god and i think they tell an interesting story. two of them were included by jefferson and two were added by the continental congress. that first reference to creator is the one that i think is probably the most pivotal, you're right, that we're endowed by our creator from certain inalienable rights, they can't be taken from you, or stripped from you by government. the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and

also, the legislative kind of component of god's nature was the laws of nature. that was the second reference. there's also the supreme judge of the universe, that's the third reference. think of it, the executive branch, the legislative branch, the judicial branch. the declaration's argument is pretty simple in one respect, it's saying that this prince, king george iii has become a tyrant. why? because he takes the legislative, executive and judicial function and proposes he can operate in that way. and i think the declaration can say without specific to one religion, it's saying if there's a superintending god, if there's a supreme being, it would be only that being that would be able to handle all of this power. no one human being. no one human committee could

take the legislative, executive and judicial power. >> all right, let's hear from gary in winter haven, florida on our line for democrats. good morning, gary. >> good morning. i wanted to talk about the second amendment. one thing a lot of people don't remember is earlier this year there was a school shooting in iowa and donald trump's response was, you just have to get over it and then recently, there was a shooting of a united health care ceo and you could hear the meltdown on the right over that and it came to-- and i realize the first time a board room gets shot up like a second grade classroom, we're going to see a ban on assault weapons. and i'm just curious about the second amendment and how that would play out and you know, the other thing is, with people don't think republicans will introduce that legislation, california's restrictive gun laws were introduced in the '60s by republican governor ronald reagan when