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THE FOUNDERS’ SECOND AMENDMENT

Origins of the Right to Bear Arms

Stephen P. Halbrook

Ivan R. Dee in association with the Independent Institute

Chicago Il 2008

Hardcover 416  pages

$28.95

During the oral arguments in District of Columbia v Heller the Supreme Court justices questioned the lawyers on the origin and scope of the Second Amendment as it was understood at the time it was written.  They could have saved their voices, if they wanted to, by reading this book.

          The author is a well-known author and attorney on Second Amendment issues.  He supplied one of the amicus briefs to the Supreme Court in Heller.  There need be no fear that this is a recycled brief.  Mr. Halbrook’s books are exhaustively researched, perfectly organized, and well written.  This effort recounts the many different efforts of the British government to disarm individual colonists.  These efforts triggered outrage in the population resulting in the Battles of Lexington and Concord.  From this historical background and the British common law came a cultural belief in a pre-existing and natural right to keep and bear arms.  The evolution of this cultural belief into the Second Amendment is carefully presented in these pages.

          The debates over the Second Amendment itself are presented as are similar provisions in state constitutions of the time.  The state debates over ratification of the Bill of Rights are presented as they relate to the Second Amendment.  In all venues the right to keep and bear arms is accepted as a given, the only dispute was how to express this right so that it could not be abused.

          While vast sections of period documents are quoted in the text, the author clearly explains the context and meaning of the sources.  The result is an authoritative yet easily understood explanation of the Founders’ intent regarding the Second Amendment.

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