The Founders' Second Amendment

The Founders' Second Amendment PDF Author: Stephen P. Halbrook
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538129671
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 449

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Book Description
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.

The Founders' Second Amendment

The Founders' Second Amendment PDF Author: Stephen P. Halbrook
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538129671
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 449

Get Book

Book Description
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.

A Well-Regulated Militia

A Well-Regulated Militia PDF Author: Saul Cornell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199712441
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
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. Winner of the Langum Prize in American Legal History/Legal Biography

That Every Man be Armed

That Every Man be Armed PDF Author: Stephen P. Halbrook
Publisher: UNM Press
ISBN: 0826352987
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
"A revised and updated edition of Halbrook's 1984 book discussing the Second Amendment and the individual right to bear arms"--Provided by publisher.

The Militia and the Right to Arms, or, How the Second Amendment Fell Silent

The Militia and the Right to Arms, or, How the Second Amendment Fell Silent PDF Author: H. Richard Uviller
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822384272
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." —Amendment II, United States Constitution The Second Amendment is regularly invoked by opponents of gun control, but H. Richard Uviller and William G. Merkel argue the amendment has nothing to contribute to debates over private access to firearms. In The Militia and the Right to Arms, or, How the Second Amendment Fell Silent, Uviller and Merkel show how postratification history has sapped the Second Amendment of its meaning. Starting with a detailed examination of the political principles of the founders, the authors build the case that the amendment's second clause (declaring the right to bear arms) depends entirely on the premise set out in the amendment's first clause (stating that a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state). The authors demonstrate that the militia envisioned by the framers of the Bill of Rights in 1789 has long since disappeared from the American scene, leaving no lineal descendants. The constitutional right to bear arms, Uviller and Merkel conclude, has evaporated along with the universal militia of the eighteenth century. Using records from the founding era, Uviller and Merkel explain that the Second Amendment was motivated by a deep fear of standing armies. To guard against the debilitating effects of militarism, and against the ultimate danger of a would-be Caesar at the head of a great professional army, the founders sought to guarantee the existence of well-trained, self-armed, locally commanded citizen militia, in which service was compulsory. By its very existence, this militia would obviate the need for a large and dangerous regular army. But as Uviller and Merkel describe the gradual rise of the United States Army and the National Guard over the last two hundred years, they highlight the nation's abandonment of the militia ideal so dear to the framers. The authors discuss issues of constitutional interpretation in light of radically changed social circumstances and contrast their position with the arguments of a diverse group of constitutional scholars including Sanford Levinson, Carl Bogus, William Van Alstyne, and Akhil Reed Amar. Espousing a centrist position in the polarized arena of Second Amendment interpretation, this book will appeal to those wanting to know more about the amendment's relevance to the issue of gun control, as well as to those interested in the constitutional and political context of America's military history.

The Second Amendment Primer

The Second Amendment Primer PDF Author: Les Adams
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing Inc.
ISBN: 1620876272
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
Explains the history, development, and modern interpretation of the freedoms offered in the Second Amendment, guaranteeing the rights of citizens to bear arms.

The Right to Bear Arms

The Right to Bear Arms PDF Author: Stephen P. Halbrook
Publisher: Bombardier Books
ISBN: 163758119X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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Book Description
The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized the individual right to keep and bear arms, but courts in states that have extreme gun control restrictions apply tests that balance the right away. This book demonstrates that the right peaceably to carry firearms is a fundamental right recognized by the text of the Second Amendment and is part of our American history and tradition. Halbrook’s scholarly work is an exhaustive historical treatment of the fundamental, individual right to carry firearms outside of the home. Halbrook traces this right from its origins in England through American colonial times, the American Revolution, the Constitution’s ratification debates, and then through the antebellum and post-bellum periods, including the history surrounding the enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This book is another important contribution by Halbrook to the scholarship concerning the text, history and tradition of the Second Amendment’s right to bear and carry arms.

Origins and Development of the Second Amendment

Origins and Development of the Second Amendment PDF Author: David T. Hardy
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 104

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Book Description
Second Amendment and Gun Rights.

A Right to Bear Arms

A Right to Bear Arms PDF Author: Stephen P. Halbrook
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN: 0313265399
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The right to keep and bear arms was considered a fundamental, individual right in the original 14 states (the 13 colonies and Vermont) from the pre-Revolutionary period through the adoption of the federal Bill of Rights in 1791. A Right to Bear Arms is the first book to demonstrate the deprivation of this right as a causal factor to the American Revolution. The book also examines the significance of the right to bear arms in each of the first states and the state influences on the adoption of the Second Amendment to the federal Constitution. This is the first book ever published on the immediate origins of the right to bear arms in the state and federal bill of rights. The work relies primarily on original sources such as period newspapers, constitutional convention debates, and the writings of the framers of the first state constitutions. The epilogue, Constitutional Conventions in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, accounts for changes in the bills of rights that have affected the issue of the right to bear arms. Considering the bicentennial of the federal Bill of Rights, being celebrated in 1989-1991, and the current gun control controversy, this book is a valuable source to historians, political scientists, law libraries, and special interest groups.

Securing Civil Rights

Securing Civil Rights PDF Author: Stephen P. Halbrook
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781598130386
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Previously published: Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the right to bear arms, 1866-1876. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, c1998.

Whose Right to Bear Arms Did the Second Amendment Protect?

Whose Right to Bear Arms Did the Second Amendment Protect? PDF Author: Saul Cornell
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312228187
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
This intriguing book examines how late-eighteenth-century Americans understood the right to bear arms. The selections expose readers to ongoing scholarly debates over this topic, providing insight into a number of the most important issues in early American historiography: the controversy over republicanism and liberalism, the tension between states' rights and individual rights, and the place of rights and revolution in the American constitutional experience.