Description
Book SynopsisExplores the remarkable and complex legal history of how the right to bear arms was widely accepted during the US’s founding, was near extinction in the late twentieth century, and is now experiencing a rebirth in the Supreme Court in the twenty-first century.
Trade ReviewTwo of the leading Second Amendment scholars in the nation, Robert Cottrol and Brannon Denning bring their deep expertise to this rich, detailed history of the right to bear arms.
To Trust the People with Arms shows how gun rights took root and developed, from the Revolutionary era to the US Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in the
Heller case—despite being abused by racists and misunderstood by others." - Adam Winkler, Connell Professor of Law at UCLA and author of
We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights and
Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in AmericaTable of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1. Constitutional Predicates
- 2. “Negro Laborers,” “Low-Browed Foreigners,” and the “Efficiency of a Well-Regulated Militia”
- 3. Arms, War, and law in the American Century
- 4. From Causal Acceptance to Virtual Desuetude
- 5. Shifting Tides
- 6. One Case, Many Controversies
- 7. A Silence Broken
- 8. McDonald
- 9. Bruen, An Unanticipated Epilogue
- Notes
- Bibliographic Essay
- Index
