Origins And Development Of The Second Amendment

A provocative, timely, and deeply-researched history of gun culture and how it reflects race and power in the United States

Americans are deeply divided over the Second Amendment. Some passionately assert that the Amendment protects an individual's right to own guns. Others, that it does no more than protect the right of states to maintain militias. Now, in the first and only comprehensive history of this bitter controversy, Saul Cornell proves conclusively that both sides are wrong. Cornell, a leading constitutional historian, shows that the Founders understood the right to bear arms as neither an individual nor a collective right, but as a civic right--an obligation citizens owed to the state to arm themselves so that they could participate in a well regulated militia. He shows how the modern "collective right" view of the Second Amendment, the one federal courts have accepted for over a hundred years, owes more to the Anti-Federalists than the Founders. Likewise, the modern "individual right" view emerged only in the nineteenth century. The modern debate, Cornell reveals, has its roots in the nineteenth century, during America's first and now largely forgotten gun violence crisis, when the earliest gun control laws were passed and the first cases on the right to bear arms came before the courts. Equally important, he describes how the gun control battle took on a new urgency during Reconstruction, when Republicans and Democrats clashed over the meaning of the right to bear arms and its connection to the Fourteenth Amendment. When the Democrats defeated the Republicans, it elevated the "collective rights" theory to preeminence and set the terms for constitutional debate over this issue for the next century. A Well Regulated Militia not only restores the lost meaning of the original Second Amendment, but it provides a clear historical road map that charts how we have arrived at our current impasse over guns. For anyone interested in understanding the great American gun debate, this is a must read.

In The Second Amendment in Law and History, the nation's leading historical and constitutional scholars -- including Jack Rakove (author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Original Meanings), Michael Bellesiles (author of Arming America), Michael Dorf, Daniel Farber, and Paul Finkelman -- marshal a broad range of historical and legal arguments that will fascinate general readers and policy specialists alike. In ten wide-ranging essays, The Second Amendment in Law and History uncovers a rich history of lawmaking, constitutional development, and social change, revealing current gun policy to be radically out of step with deep historical and constitutional trends. The essays touch on leading constitutional debates -- including the nature of constitutional interpretation, the relationship between federal and local authority, and the philosophical origins of American constitutionalism -- as well as key historical issues surrounding gun ownership and the constitutional right to bear arms.

Stephen P. Halbrook's The Founders' Second Amendment is the first book-length account of the origins of the Second Amendment, based on the Founders' own statements as found in newspapers, correspondence, debates, and resolutions. Mr. Halbrook investigates the period from 1768 to 1826, from the last years of British rule and the American Revolution through to the adoption of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and the passing of the Founders' generation. His book offers the most comprehensive analysis of the arguments behind the drafting and adoption of the Second Amendment, and the intentions of the men who created it.

Halbrook offers a comprehensive analysis of the arguments behind the drafting and adoption of the Second Amendment, and the intentions of the Founding Fathers who created it.