Right to keep and bear arms

About: Right to keep and bear arms is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 165 publications have been published within this topic receiving 603 citations. The topic is also known as: right to bear arms & bearing arms.

Armed Citizens and the Stories They Tell: The National Rifle Association's Achievement of Terror and Masculinity

Abstract: Since 1926, the National Rifle Association's (NRA) flagship publication has without pause featured “The Armed Citizen,” a column that reports instances in which law-abiding citizens have successfully defended their property, person, and/or family with firearms. These reports are brief (100 to 200 words) and have remained remarkably untouched over the past 80 years with regard to style, diction, and narrative structure. Their rhetorical effect, however, has not. In 1977, the year the NRA became a social movement, these narratives began to contribute to the production of a terror-filled, deeply masculine (and surprisingly biblical) NRA discourse that led (and continues to lead) to the mobilization of its members to defend the right to keep and bear arms in the face of extraordinary public opposition: to perpetuate what has come to be known as the “gun-control paradox.”

NRA v. City of Chicago: Does the Second Amendment Bind Frank Easterbrook?

Abstract: In NRA v. City of Chicago, Judge Easterbrook held that the Second Amendment, which protects the right to keep and bear arms, did not bind state governments. This article examines the reasoning that he uses to reach that result, which it contrasts with the style of argumentation that led to the opposite conclusion in Judge O’Scannlain’s decision in Norkdye v. King. Easterbrook’s approach emphasized the imperative need for lower court deference to the Supreme Court’s explicit Reconstruction Era holdings that the Second Amendment does not bind the states, even after the Supreme Court’s game-changing decision in District of Columbia v. Heller and thus gave only scant attention to the various historical authorities that O’Scannlain referred to in Nordyke. On balance it appears that Easterbrook is against incorporation on a variety of historical and federalism grounds, none of which are likely to prevail when the Supreme Court addresses the issue of incorporation when it hears the case later in the 2009 October Term.

That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right

Abstract: That Every Man Be Armed , the first scholarly book on the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, has played a significant role in constitutional debate and litigation since it was first published in 1984. Halbrook traces the right to bear arms from ancient Greece and Rome to the English republicans, then to the American Revolution and Constitution, through the Reconstruction period extending the right to African Americans, and onward to today's controversies. With reviews of recent literature and court decisions, this new edition ensures that Halbrook's study remains the most comprehensive general work on the right to keep and bear arms.

Constitutional Law for a Changing America: Institutional Powers and Constraints

Abstract: Chronological Table of Cases Tables, Figures, and Boxes Preface I. THE SUPREME COURT AND THE CONSTITUTION The Living Constitution 1. Understanding the U.S. Supreme Court 2. The Judiciary: Institutional Powers and Constraints 3. Incorporation of the Bill of Rights II. CIVIL LIBERTIES 4. Religion: Exercise and Establishment 5. Freedom of Speech, Assembly, and Association 6. Freedom of the Press 7. The Boundaries of Free Expression: Libel, Obscenity, and Emerging Areas of Government Concern 8. The First Amendment and the Internet 9. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms 10. The Right to Privacy III. THE RIGHTS OF THE CRIMINALLY ACCUSED 11. Investigations and Evidence 12. Attorneys, Trials, and Punishments IV. CIVIL RIGHTS 13. Discrimination 14. Voting and Representation Reference Material Constitution of the United States Federalist Paper, No. 78 U.S. Presidents Thumbnail Sketch of the Supreme Court's History The Justices Natural Courts Supreme Court Calendar Briefing Supreme Court Cases Glossary Online Case Archive Index Subject Index Case Index Image Credits About the Authors

Under Fire: The New Consensus on the Second Amendment

Abstract: This article first rebuts charges made in Gun Crazy, an article which asserts that the near-unanimous consensus supporting the individual rights view of the Second Amendment among historians and legal scholars is the result of a sinister concerted effort by pro-gun professors and fellow travelers. Compelling textual, structural, historical, and criminological evidence supports the new consensus. The article then examines the merits of the interpretation proffered by opponents of an individual right to keep and bear arms: the militia-centric conception of the Second Amendment. Textual, historical, and structural considerations all argue against such an interpretation. Finally, the issue that is really motivating those who reject an individual rights interpretation in favor of a militia-centric conception of the Second Amendment is identified: the allegedly adverse effect of gun ownership on public safety.