A better way to think about the Bill of Rights is that it is a set of constitutional limits (laws) on what the government may do to you, punish you for, or force you to obey.

Calling the amendments “rights” in themselves can create confusion. People will criticize the Bill of Rights by saying our rights do not come from a piece of paper, and in that sense they are technically right. The Bill of Rights does not create our rights. It recognizes them and restrains the government from violating them. The problem it is meant to address is simple: governments do not truly grant rights. They more often take them away, restrict them, or sell them back to people as privileges.

Another major misunderstanding is the idea that the Bill of Rights always protects you instantly, on the spot, in real time. It does not always work that way. A police officer can still arrest you unlawfully, search you unlawfully, or otherwise violate your rights. Like other laws, the ultimate force of the Bill of Rights often appears in a courtroom, after the violation has already happened. But that does not make it worthless. We do not say laws against theft are meaningless just because theft still happens. We understand that laws can be broken, and that their purpose is to provide a standard for judgment and accountability.

The same is true here. Sometimes the government breaks the law. The Bill of Rights gives us the constitutional standard by which those violations can be challenged.