A demystifying guide to the complex debates surrounding the constitutional right to bear arms. With help from the National Rifle Association and the pro-gun lobby, the idea that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees an unrestricted right to gun ownership has achieved a firm footing in recent decades. Yet few issues of public policy are so misunderstood, so oversimplified—and so crucially important to the health and welfare of all Americans. The gun lobby and its proponents would have us believe that the constitutional issue is moot, and that the regulation of firearms is beyond the reach of legislation. But as the contributors to this important anthology demonstrate, both the historical and constitutional arguments are very much alive—and in fact weigh heavily in favor of those who would restrict gun ownership. In the eight essays 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 revealing current gun policy to be radically out of step with deep historical and constitutional trends.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
There are two opposing theories about what the Second Amendment was designed to protect. Over a century of federal court rulings have established that it guarantees the right to bear arms within an established (i.e., formal and public) militia. The first law review article asserting an individual's right to own firearms for self-defense (or sport) did not appear until 1960, and yet the balance has swung in the individualist direction, with Republicans, gun lobbyists and even high-profile liberals endorsing that view. This lucid 10-essay collection by historians and legal scholars soberly takes on the entire revisionist anti-gun control project. Setting the stage, Bogus and Robert Spitzer analyze its history of logic and legal scholarship. (Spitzer focuses on how student-run, non-peer-reviewed law journals are vulnerable to producing bodies of error-filled work.) Pulitzer winner Jack Rakove (Original Meanings) and Paul Finkelman argue that the amendment's original intent was to mediate state and federal power over militias, while Michael Bellesiles (Arming America) explores late 18th-century gun control. Steven Heyman explains how the natural law tradition supports a collective rather than an inalienable individual right. The most powerful essays take dead aim at the practice of "law office history," whereby quotes and passages favorable to the individual rights side are excerpted without regard to a document's larger context. This outstanding discussion will appeal mainly to those most passionately committed to the issue of gun ownership, but it will inform discussions in the media on a heated subject.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
The articles in this collection support an interpretation of the Second Amendment as a collective rather than an individual right the right of the states to maintain an armed militia. The authors draw on documents from the time of the amendment's ratification, relevant historical events in Britain and the United States, and legal analysis. Authors discuss state/colonial gun control already in place in the 18th century, the contrast between the militia then and today's National Guard, and what the authors believe are the fallacies of the argument that the amendment protects an individual right to own firearms. The contributors, including well-known scholars, are all academics, mostly in law but also in political science and history. This is a clear, thorough, well-documented look at the historical and legal record. There are hundreds of books available on the right to bear arms, but few scholarly books on the history of the Second Amendment. Highly recommended for academic and larger public libraries. Mary Jane Brustman, SUNY at Albany Libs.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Books contributers have a bad history of history,
This review is from: The Second Amendment in Law and History: Historians and Constitutional Scholars on the Right to Bear Arms (Hardcover)
To point out just one, Michael Bellesiles (author of Arming America), had his Bancroft prize revoked after it was revealed he had falsified his sources. Using him as a contributer is like using Jayson Blair to write an article about the 1st Amendment.
2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Colective View Completly Discredited,
This review is from: The Second Amendment in Law and History: Historians and Constitutional Scholars on the Right to Bear Arms (Hardcover)
This book is well writen with a very "scholarly" air. However well writen, the conclusions reached in each essay are wrong. The fact that the term "the People" everywhere else in the U.S. Constitution refers to an individul right of the people is never addressed. Also completly neglected are the writings of the framers that support an individual rights veiw. This book belongs in the trashbin of history.
10 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Informative and thought provoking,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Second Amendment in Law and History: Historians and Constitutional Scholars on the Right to Bear Arms (Hardcover)
I thought that this book was very informative and thought provoking. It examines the difficulties of understanding and applying the second amendment in our modern day world. Although the second amendment is often used by the pro-gun lobby to justify its opposition to gun-control, no second amendment challenge to a gun control law has ever been successful in the federal court system. In fact, gun control laws have been around for over 200 years so apparently the founding fathers didn't see the second amendment as a barrier to such laws. Examples of early gun control laws are the forbidding of carrying concealed weapons and disarming anyone who would not swear loyalty to the state they lived in. The first article in a law journal advocating an individual right to bear arms was published in the 1960's. Before that, the consensus had been in law journals that such a right was exercised only in connection with a well regulated militia. Just what is the well regulated militia of the presented day? Federal law and the Supreme Court have defined it as the National Guard. The second part of the second amendment speaks of the people. What did the founders mean when they referred to the people? Some would like to think that they meant each adult individual. However, this understanding is not consistent with the way the word is used in other parts of the constitution. In the preamble of the Constitution, the founders refer to themselves as "We the People." Obviously not each adult individual in America was involved in writing the Constitution. The first amendment speaks of "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." The word "assemble" lets us know that such a right is exercised by the people collectively and not by an individual person. The term "bear arms" usually referred military service at the time of the writing of the second amendment. This is evident from the first draft of the second amendment in which James Madison states, "no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person." Although the pro-gun lobby likes to equate "bearing arms" with carrying a gun, to James Madison the term meant "to render military service." Lastly, what arms were they founders referring to? Muskets, not machine guns, semi-automatic assault rifles nor Uzis. Obviously, using the second amendment to oppose laws regulating such weapons is highly questionably.
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