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Second Amendment

  • 4/9/2023

    Why Did Madison Write the Second Amendment?

    by Carl T. Bogus

    Understanding the political peril that ensnared both the pre-ratification Constitution and James Madison himself makes it clear that the Second Amendment was written to ensure that southern state militias would be sufficiently armed to suppress slave revolts even if abolitionists controlled Washington. 

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    12/14/2022

    After Bruen: One Nation, Under Guns

    by Ryan Busse

    "As bad as America’s gun-violence problem is, it could be about to get much worse," says former gun industry insider turned whistleblower. The selective reading of the historical record advanced by Justice Thomas's opinion would force judges to play historian to decide cases, destabilizing gun law in many ways. 

  • SOURCE: Substack
    12/14/2022

    It's Time to Be Honest About the Partisan Nature of Gun Culture

    by Heather Cox Richardson

    "The national free-for-all in which we have 120 guns for every 100 people... is deeply tied to the political ideology of today’s Republican Party. It comes from the rise of Movement Conservatism under Ronald Reagan."

  • SOURCE: The Trace
    8/5/2022

    The NRA's Amicus Brief Machine

    Lax disclosure rules about who funds the groups filing amicus briefs means that the NRA has been able to use its wealth to flood the courts with briefs that exaggerate the strength of its radical pro-gun positions, says historian Patrick J. Charles. 

  • SOURCE: The New Yorker
    6/24/2022

    What SCOTUS's Guns Ruling Means for New York

    Researchers suggest that the recently overturned New York state law did make residents significantly safer – from gun suicides – when it was passed more than a century ago. 

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    6/5/2022

    History Suggests Gun Control Will be an Uphill Fight

    by Joanna Paxton Federico

    The National Rifle Association has succeeded in blocking popular gun control legislation since it overcame strong public support in the 1930s for national handgun registration in FDR's "New Deal for Crime." 

  • 5/12/2022

    Why Andrew Jackson Believed in Gun Control

    by Anders Walker

    Andrew Jackson loved guns, but his correspondence with John C. Calhoun from 1818 shows that he believed that the Second Amendment didn't guarantee an individual right to own them and that regulation was key to public safety. 

  • 6/5/2022

    There Oughtta Be a Law

    by Jim Zirin

    A veteran prosecutor weighs in on how American law must erase the distinction between "fully automatic" and "semiautomatic" weapons and ban the weapons that are used in massacre after massacre.

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    2/23/2022

    The Sandy Hook Settlement Could Transform the Marketing of Guns

    by Tracy L. Barnett

    The settlement between Remington and the families of victims does not accept fault, but it does establish the dangerous connection between the marketing of guns as totems of masculinity and the damage done by young men who acquire them with ease. 

  • SOURCE: Boston Review
    12/17/2021

    America as a Tactical Gun Culture

    by Chad Kautzer

    "Vigilantism is fueled by an individualist notion of sovereignty more dangerous than any military-grade weaponry. It rejects the freedom of others as equal to one’s own and views any attempt to support such equality as tyranny."

  • SOURCE: The New Yorker
    11/16/2021

    How Much is the NRA to Blame for the Gun Culture?

    Two new books help to shed light on how the NRA, partisan politicians, and the gun industry "took a political base of hunters and nurtured a new, expanded audience of gun guys," and how they made Americans live in their world.