A study of the second of the amendments to the U.S. Constitution which guarantees citizens the right to bear arms, examining its origins and early development, the twentieth-century legal and political view of the right, and four contemporary controversies over the Second Amendment. Includes references and source materials.
Content Note
The British heritage -- The colonial experience -- The Constitution -- The Bill of Rights -- The decline of the old militia system -- Supreme Court rulings -- Other court rulings -- The textbook view -- Twentieth-century issues -- Alternate views -- The individualist argument -- The "right of revolution" -- Spreading arguments in the media -- Seeking shelter under the Fourteenth Amendment -- The Second Amendment and politics -- Rights talk -- Into the twenty-first century -- The Brady Law, the assault weapons ban, and beyond -- The new militia movement -- Recent court actions -- Escalating Second Amendment rhetoric -- Key people, cases, and events -- Documents -- The Calling Forth Act of 1792 -- The Uniform Militia Act of 1792 -- United States v. Cruikshank (1876) -- Presser v. Illinois (1886) -- United States v. Miller (1939) -- Quilici v. Village of Morton Grove (1982) -- State right-to-bear-arms provisions -- Major party platform statements on gun control.