Second Amendment 
-
SOURCE: Heather Cox Richardson
3/23/2021
Letters From an American: March 23, 2021
by Heather Cox Richardson
Beginning in the 1970s, the National Rifle Assocaition evolved into a political lobbying organization increasingly enmeshed with the conservative movement. Two recent mass shootings are a tribute to the organization's success. Congratulations.
-
SOURCE: New York Times
1/26/2021
Out of the Barrel of a Gun
The resurgent militia movement and renewed attention to the threat of political violence compels a reckoning with the vast number of firearms in America and with the political significance of guns.
-
SOURCE: The Atlantic
1/11/2021
The Gun-Rights Movement Fed America’s Insurrectionist Fever Dreams
by Firmin DeBrabander
"The gun-rights movement cleared the path for insurrection. It blew a hole in the rule of law—and Donald Trump’s would-be soldiers clamored through it. And then scaled the walls of Congress."
-
SOURCE: Duke Center for Firearms Law
10/14/2020
Amy Coney Barrett on Guns
by Jake Charles
A Second Amendment scholar examines the SCOTUS nominee's historical interpretation of prohibitions on individual firearm ownership, concluding that her record shows a commitment to gun rights but uncertainty about how she might rule on particular cases.
-
SOURCE: Duke Center for Firearms Law
10/7/2020
Why Heller is Such Bad History
by Noah Shusterman
Antonin Scalia's opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller ignored the actual history of the early American militia in order to invent an individual right to gun ownership.
-
SOURCE: The Atlantic
10/1/2020
A Pro-Trump Militant Group Has Recruited Thousands of Police, Soldiers, and Veterans
It is difficult to know how many of the people--many retired or active military and law enforcement--listed in an Oath Keepers database are active members of the far right group, but the organization's history and the prospect of political violence mean it should be taken seriously.
-
9/20/2020
The Second Amendment has Never Covered Kenosha Shooter Kyle Rittenhouse
by Noah Shusterman
If his lawyer wants to argue that Kyle Rittenhouse was acting in the spirit of those eighteenth-century militias which went outside the law and defied their state government, and especially those who did so in the interest of promoting white supremacy – his case would be historically solid. It would not, however, be an exoneration.
-
SOURCE: New York Times
9/3/2020
In Act of Heresy, N.R.A.’s Former No. 2 Calls for Gun Control
“The N.R.A. fueled a toxic debate,” Mr. Powell writes, “by appealing to the paranoia and darkest side of our members, in a way that has torn at the very fabric of America.”
-
SOURCE: Washington Post
5/18/2020
One of these Stories about Guns in Public Places is not Like the Others. Here’s Why.
by Jonathan Blanks
As guns have become an increasingly common sight at protests and government buildings, it’s clear that carrying them means different things — and presents different risks — for black and white Americans.
-
SOURCE: Boston1775 (blog)
6-7-18
A check of databases show the Supreme Court erred in saying the Second Amendment protects the individual ownership of guns
Two new databases of English writing from the founding era confirm that “bear arms” is a military term.
-
SOURCE: The Washington Post
3-27-18
Gun-control advocates believe their activism will mirror the fight for gay marriage. They’re wrong.
by James Kirchick
The better comparison is Prohibition — and we all know how that turned out.
-
SOURCE: Politico
3-24-18
The Lessons of a School Shooting—in 1853
by Saul Cornell
How a now-forgotten classroom murder inflamed the national gun argument.
-
SOURCE: The Washington Post
3-26-18
How the marches for gun control are like the protests against Vietnam
As in Vietnam, students have a stake in this fight.
-
SOURCE: NYT
3-22-18
America Passed Gun Control in 1968. Can It Happen Again?
by Jason Sokol
The King and Kennedy assassinations spurred the passage of the Gun Control Act.
-
3-14-18
We Shouldn’t Be Surprised that Young People Are Leading the Charge for Gun Control
by Bill Heiden
Most importantly, history shows that this kind of street action works.
-
SOURCE: guns.com
3-13-18
Patrick J. Charles, author of a new book on guns, defends militia-centric understanding of Second Amendment
“There’s been people on both sides who’ve misappropriated historical evidence over time or failed to fully contextualize it.”
-
SOURCE: The Washington Post
3-12-18
Jonathan Zimmerman says students should go on strike to win gun control
by Jonathan Zimmerman
West Virginia teachers won by striking. There’s a lesson in that.
-
SOURCE: NYT
3-5-18
7 Times in History When Students Turned to Activism
History is full of movements led by students — albeit usually in college, not high school. Some were successful and others brutally crushed, but even the latter still resonate.
-
SOURCE: The Washington Post
3-2-18
Before Trump’s wild shifts on the NRA, Ronald Reagan took on the gun lobby
On May 3, 1994, Ronald Reagan and two other former presidents sent a letter to House members, urging them to support a controversial ban on lethal, military-style assault weapons.
-
SOURCE: The Globe and Mail
3-2-18
Boycotts won't weaken the NRA's bottom line – but that's not the point
by Lawrence Glickman
The ethical point boycotters have tried to raise from that time to our own is that, in an interconnected national and international market economy, there are no innocent bystanders.
News
- House Panel Advances Bill to Study Slavery Reparations
- House Arrest: How An Automated Algorithm Constrained Congress for a Century
- Hank Aaron’s Name Will Replace a Confederate General’s on an Atlanta School
- How Domestic Labor Became Infrastructure
- ‘That Man Makes Me Crazy’: Neil Matkin's Reign at Collin College Draws Scrutiny
- “Containment and Control, Not Care or Cure”: An Interview with Elizabeth Catte on Virginia’s Eugenics Movement
- How White Fears of ‘Negro Domination’ Kept D.C. Disenfranchised for Decades
- The Sun Never Set on the British Empire’s Oppression
- Sounds of Freedom: The Music of Black Liberation
- How Americans Lost Their Fervor for Freedom (Review of Louis Menand)