[CarlS]

Panama Red and others interested in the history of the Second Amendment. The following is a short list of legal opinions and legal research into the origins of the 2nd Amendment. From these articles, one can use the bibliographies to dig deeper into the minds of the founding fathers who wrote our constitution and bill of rights. Research into this subject has proliferated in the last 20 years due to the questions of gun control being at the political forefront. I was not able to find my own bibliographical list compiled from 40 plus years of researching this topic (too many moves over the years!), so I started recreating one.

Much insight can found in the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers which were sited in the previous thread. As you will discover, opinions on a strong central government vs. a weak one were divided pretty much regionally with the Virginia contingent taking the lead on checks against a strong central government, hence the 2nd Amendment.

Following this list, is a list of opinions concerning 2nd amendment matters. One article is by a feminist (her words).

Much of this is dry, heavy reading. Happy reading!


Second Amendment History

Bordenet, Bernard J., "The Right to Possess Arms: The Intent of the Framers of the Second Amendment, University of West Los Angeles Law Review, 21 (1990).

Cramer, Clayton E., For the Defense of Themselves and the State: The Original Intent and Judicial Interpretation of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Wesport, Conn., Praeger Press, 1994.

Halbrook, Stephen P., Freedmen: The 14th Amendment and the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, 1776-1866, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing (1998).

_____, "Personal Security, Personal Liberty, and 'The Constitutional Right to Bear Arms': Visions of the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment," Seton Hall Constitutional Law Journal, 5 (1995): 341-434.

_____, "The Right to Keep and Bear Arms in Texas: The Intent of the Framers of the Bill of Rights," Baylor Law Review, 41 (1989): 629-688.

_____, "Encroachment of the Crown on the Liberty of the Subject: Pre-Revolutionary Origins of the Second Amendment," University of Dayton Law Review, 15 (1989): 91.

_____, "What the Framers Intended: A Linguistic Analysis of the Right to 'Bear Arms,'" Law & Contemporary Problems, 49 (1986): 151.

_____, That Every Man Be Armed--The Evolution of a Constitutional Right, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984.

_____, "To Keep and Bear Their Private Arms: The Adoption of the Second Amendment 1789-1791," Northern Kentucky Law Review, 10 (1982): 13-39.

Hardy, David T., "Armed Citizens, Citizen Armies: Toward a Jurisprudence of the Second Amendment," Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, (1986): 559-638.

_____, Origin and Development of the Second Amendment, Southport, Conn.: Blacksmith Corporation, 1986.

_____, "The Second Amendment and the Historiography of the Bill of Rights," Journal of Law & Politics, 4 (1987): 1.

Malcolm, Joyce Lee, "The Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms: The Common Law Tradition," Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, 10 (1983): 285-314.

Shalhope, Robert E., "The Ideological Origins of the Second Amendment," The Journal of American History, 69 (1982): 559-614.


Young, David E., ed., The Origin of the Second Amendment: A Documentary History of the Bill of Rights, 1787-1792, Ontonagon, Mich.: Golden Oak Books, 1995.


Other 2nd Amendment Reading

Cantrell, Charles L., "The Right of the Individual to Bear Arms," Wisconsin Bar Bulletin, 53 (Oct. 1980): 21.

Caplan, David I., "Handgun Control: Constitutional or Unconstitutional?," North Carolina Central Law Journal, 5 (1976): 53-58.

Comment, "The Right to Keep and Bear Arms: A Necessary Constitutional Guarantee or an Outmoded Provision of the Bill of Rights?," Albany Law Review, 31 (1967): 74.

Cottrol, Robert J., Raymond T. Diamond, ed., Gun Control and the Constitution: Sources and Explorations on the Second Amendment, New York, Garland Publishing, Inc., 1994.

Cramer, Clayton E., "The Racist Roots of Gun Control," Kansas Journal of Law & Public Policy, Winter 1995: 17-25.

Dowlut, Robert, "The Right to Keep and Bear Arms: A Right to Self-Defense Against Criminals and Despots," Standford Law & Policy Review, 8 (1997): 25-40.

_____, "The Current Relevancy of Keeping and Bearing Arms," University of Baltimore Law Forum , 15 (1984): 29-32.

Funk, T. Markus, "Gun Control and Economic Discrimination: The Melting-Point Case-in-Point," Northwestern University Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 85 (1995): 764-806.

Halbrook, Stephen P., _____, "The Right of the People or the Power of the State: Bearing Arms, Arming Militias, and the Second Amendment," Valparaiso Law Review, 26 (1991): 131-207.

Hardy, David T., "Firearms Ownership and Regulation: Tackling an Old Problem With Renewed Vigor," William and Mary Law Review, 20 (1978): 235-290.

Harmer, David, "Securing a Free State: Why the Second Amendment Matters," Brigham Young University Law Review, 1 (1998): 55-101.

Hayes, Stuart R., "The Right to Keep and Bear Arms, A Study in Judicial Misinterpretation," William and Mary Law Review, 2 (1960): 381.

Johnson, Nicholas J., "Beyond the Second Amendment: An Individual Right to Arms Viewed Through the Ninth Amendment," Rutgers Law Journal, 24 (1992): 1-81.

Kates, Don B., Jr., ed., Restricting Handguns: The Liberal Skeptics Speak Out, Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y.: North River Press, 1979

Kopel, David B., _____, Trust the People: The Case Against Gun Control, Cato Institute Policy Report, 1988.

_____,and Joseph E. Olson, "All The Way Down The Slippery Slope: Gun Prohibition in England and Some Lessons for Civil Liberties in America," Hamline Law Review, 22 (1999): 399-465.

Larish, Inge Anna, "Why Annie Can't Get Her Gun: A Feminist Perspective on the Second Amendment," University of Illinios Law Review, 2 (1996): 467-508.

Morgan, Eric C., "Assault Rifle Legislation: Unwise and Unconstitutional," American Journal of Criminal Law, 17 (1990): 143.
Tahmassebi, Stefan B., "Gun Control and Racism," George Mason Civil Rights Law Journal, 2 (1991): 67.

Weiss, Jonathan A., "A Reply to Advocates of Gun Control Law," Journal of Urban Law, 52 (1974): 577-589.