what would you change in the bill of rights if you had the power to do so?

I would have the 2nd amendment  - right to bear arms -  rephrased.

The Government of the United States shall under no circumstances
declare war on any nation or group of people, except in such case as
it is to defend itself from an ongoing foreign agression.


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That would've kept us out of 99% of the wars this country has been involved in.

I agree with myoarin-ga.  The founders made a huge blunder.

Nelson, I wouldn't go that far, they were only dealing with
muzzle-loaders - and not with the ARA. Myo

I have to disagree with elids about the 99% comment. If you look at
the definithion of aggression, I can't honestly think of a single
"war" we've been involved in that didn't qualify (war is in quotation
because the balkans came to mind, however officially the mission in
the balkans was defined as a peacekeeping mission).

In case your wondering here is the definition I found for aggression

http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=aggression

# a disposition to behave aggressively
# a feeling of hostility that arouses thoughts of attack
# violent action that is hostile and usually unprovoked
# the act of initiating hostilities
# deliberately unfriendly behavior

Elids-ga's comment does not refer to the Bill of Rights, however worth
of discussion the subject may be.

http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/funddocs/billeng.htm

I, too, would change the Second Amendment. I'd reword it to remove any
ambiguity. I would make it manifestly clear that individual citizens
have the right to own firearms.

Although 12 amendments were originally proposed, the 10 that were
ratified became the Bill of Rights in 1791. They defined citizens'
rights in relation to the newly established government under the
Constitution.

I agree with Myoarin that what I said would not normally fall under
what we accept as being covered by the Bill of Rights. However, he
said 'how would you ammend...' and based on " ... expressed a desire,
in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers,..." I
would ammend it to include the right of citizens (soldiers) to not be
exposed to death for any reason other than that of defending his/her
country when under attack.

Now, as for agonizing_fury's comment, allow me to point out one or two. 
- The Indian wars keep in mind that there were over 100 independant
Indian nations in North America. Most of those nations were
obliterated without a declaration of war.
- The Mexican war, they did not come into any of the Union's states, we went there.
- The Spanish-American war they never attacked the US we invaded
Florida and took it from them.
- The Spanish-American war months later we invaded and took over Cuba
and Puerto Rico.
- World War I the sinking of the Lusitania was not a declaration of
war against the US (however rightious that war may have been).
- The Korean war we went there they did not come here.
- The Viet-Nam war again same thing.
- The first Gulf war (the second is debatable, so it wouldn't make this list).
And that would be leaving out the countless others that don't qualify
as a wars properly. For instance the creation of the country of Panama
by the US by severing the northern part of Colombia when they asked
for too many concessions in order for us to make the Panama canal. The
invasion of the Phillipines taking them from the Spaniards. More
recently our aiding the United Kingdom in a war against Argentina over
the Malvinas (look at a map, read history those islands were taken
over from Argentina by the British recognized Argentina in 1825 with
the islands under Argentinian control and they did not claim them
-they went from spain in 1520 to France in 1764 to England in 1765
back to spain in 1770 and Argentina when they declared independance.
England invaded and took over them again in 1829- Argentina has
claimed them since). We had (and still do) a treaty with Argentina
that state 'if any country in America is invaded by a power from a
different continent all nations in the America's are to aid the
invaded country' we had an obligation to aid Argentina we had no
obligation under NATO to aid England. We helped England. But I
digress, although I could go on I believe that should point
agonizing_fury in the right direction.


And like everybody else I too would change the second ammendment, only
I would do it so that nobody has the right to bear arms.

Elids, 
Then if I understand you correctly, you were proposing that your text
should have been included in the Bill of Rights  - or was the text of
the 11th or 12th amendments that were not ratified?
Either way, I would agree with you, although the Bill of Rights has a
nice cohesiveness in being just that:  a definition of the citizens'
individual rights.

The German "Grundgesetz"  - Basic Law -  did have a very similar
passage:  all neat and simple: for defense only.  But NATO then called
for its members to come to the defense of each other, and since the
1990s the concepts and restrictions have weakened.  The present
defense minister proclaimed in Afghanistan that defense of Germany
starts at the Hindukush.

I expect that such an admendment to or statement in the US
Constitution would also have been watered down with time, and a lot
can happen without "declaring war."  As you say, the Indian Wars were
not declared. I don't know how the action in the Philipines was
described or justified at the time, ditto for Cuba.  Until the early
1960's, the official expression for the UN action in Korea was the
"Korean Conflict."
Anyway, it would have been a good idea, but I doubt that a presidnet
would have been impeached for breaching such a text as part of the
Constitution.
Myoarin

No, my esteemed pinkfreud, it needs to be amended to clarify that the
individual states can keep a militia (i.e., the national guard). 
Individuals should not have the right to own weapons.  Most countries
that do not have gun rights have lower crime rates than the U.S. 
(Don't make me post a question to get the stats.)

I usually refrain in Google Answers from making comments on domestic
issues of countries which are not mine, as is the case of the United
States. Now, as an Argentine, I must thank Elids-ga for an accurate
mention of that sad episode that involved Argentina, UK and USA.