For the Defense of Themselves and the State: The Original Intent and Judicial Interpretation of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms

by Clayton E. Cramer

Overview

[This book] provides the kind of scholarly resource that educated citizens need to think for themselves, a rich digest of primary sources documenting—in their own words—the views, motives, and intentions of the Framers, historic commentators, legislators, and judiciary who have debated the right to keep and bear arms from the origins of our republic. Preston K. Covey, Carnegie Mellon University

Beginning with its origins in the English Civil War, Clayton Cramer traces the development in the United States of the right to keep and bear arms—through the Constitutional Convention, the ratification debates that followed, its inclusion by Congress in the Bill of Rights, to the present controversy over gun control. This book provides important background, analysis, documentation, and perspective for the ongoing national debate over arms.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780275949136
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	05/25/1994
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.75(d)
Lexile:	1580L (what's this?)

About the Author

CLAYTON E. CRAMER is author of By the Dim and Flaring Lamps: The Civil War Diary of Samuel McIlvaine, he has had numerous articles published concerning constitutional history, gun control, civil defense, and problems of media ethics.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Preface
Acknowledgments
Definitions
European Origins
The Legislative History of the Second Amendment
Problems of Judicial Interpretation
"To Keep and Carry Arms Wherever They Went"
"No Negro . . . Shall Be Allowed To Carry Fire-Arms"
"Carrying Concealed Weapons Is a Grievous Evil"
"A Proper Reason for Carrying a Pistol"
Civil Rights, Civil Disturbances
The Right Comes Out of Its Coma?
At the Crossroads
Selected Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Covers the European origins and legislative history of the Second Amendment and the problems surrounding its judicial interpretation. Cramer, a computer programmer who began this work as a term paper for an undergraduate history class in 1989, details some 200 state and US Supreme Court decisions concerning the amendment, and discusses issues such as the role of racism in the passage of gun control laws during Reconstruction, social class as a factor in discretionary permit laws, and the Model Uniform Firearms Act. For scholars and the general reader. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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