That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right
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This is an authoritative study of the second amendment, using history and current-day analysis. It is one of the only scholarly works on the subject, but has proven widely accessible. Halbrook traces the origins of the Second Amendment back to ancient Greece and Rome, and then through the “freemen” movement in 18th-century England and France. He demonstrates that the framers of the Constitution were conscious of such history when they drafted the Second Amendment, and that the Second Amendment was clearly intended to allow possession of firearms not just for defense of personal life and property but also to prevent government infringement of human liberties. His meticulous, thorough scholarship demonstrates that the right to bear arms is as fundamental a right under the Constitution as freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
PrefaceIntroduction: Firearms Prohibition and Constitutional Rights31The Elementary Books of Public Right7The Citizen as Arms Bearer in Greek Polity: Plato and Aristotle9From Republic to Empire in Rome: Cicero versus Caesar14Machiavellian Interlude: Freedom and the Popular Militia20Absolutism versus Republicanism in the Seventeenth Century24Arms, Militia, and Penal Reform in Eighteenth-Century Liberal Thought322The Common Law of England37The Tradition of the Armed Freeman37Gun Control Laws of the Absolute Monarchs40That Subjects May Have Arms for Their Defense: The Glorious Revolution and Bill of Rights43The Common-Law Liberty to Have Arms: From Coke to Blackstone493The American Revolution and the Second Amendment55Poore Endebted Discontented and Armed: Bacon's Rebellion of 167655The American Revolution: Armed Citizens against Standing Army58The Controversy over Ratification of the Constitution65To Keep and Bear Their Private Arms: The Adoption of the Bill of Rights764Antebellum Interpretations89Judicial Commentaries: The Armed Citizen as the Palladium of Liberty89Carrying Weapons Concealed: The Only Right Questioned in Early State Cases93The Disarmed Slave and the Dred Scott Dilemma96That "The People" Means All Humans: Abolitionist Origins of the Fourteenth Amendment995Freedmen, Firearms, and the Fourteenth Amendment107That No State Shall Disarm a Freedman: The Proposal of the Fourteenth Amendment108The Public Understanding and State Ratifications of the Fourteenth Amendment115The Impact of the Fourteenth Amendment upon State Constitutions124That No Militia Shall Disarm a Freedman: The Abolition of the Southern Militia Organizations, 1866-1869135Against Deprivation under Color of State Law of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms: The Civil Rights Acts of 1871 and 18751426The Supreme Court Speaks155Post-Reconstruction Decisions156The Right to Keep and Bear Militia Arms: United States v. Miller (1939)164The Logic of Incorporation and the Fundamental Character of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms1707State and Federal Judicial Opinions179The Pistol as a Protected Arm179State Court Decisions since World War II184To Disarm Felons or to Disarm Citizens? Federal Court Decisions from 1940187Afterword: Public Policy and the Right to Keep and Bear Arms193Notes199Index267About the Author275
