Books on 2nd amendment

[Timkid]

Did a couple of searches for books on 2nd amendment and found little on the subject. I would like to know what fokes on this site recommend. I would like to find books on legal issues, the founding fathers stance and any other books that would be good reads on the subject.

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[oakchas]

Did a couple of searches for books on 2nd amendment and found little on the subject. I would like to know what fokes on this site recommend. I would like to find books on legal issues, the founding fathers stance and any other books that would be good reads on the subject.

Okay, from a fellow Iowan...

You can find the federalist papers, free on line.
You can read the Supreme court decisions of Heller and McDonald, free on line
You can read the THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS report of the subcommittee on the Constitution from 97 congress 1982 Here's a PDF:87senrpt.pdf (thanks to OD*)

This one is a bit anti.... but was used in the Heller decision IIRC, and is well researched. Fascinating account of carry, militia, concealed carry episodes, good reading, really: A Well-Regulated Militia : The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America . Saul Cornell, Saul Oxford University Press.

That'll get you started, I'm sure others will chime in.

[ccw9mm]

Here is a short list that should keep you entertained and intellectually inspired for a good while:

1. The Founders' View of the Right to Bear Arms: A Definitive History of the Second Amendment, by David Young.
   
   
2. That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right, by Stephen Halbrook.
   
   
3. The Founders' Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms, by Stephen Halbrook.
   
   
4. Supreme Court Gun Cases, by David Kopel, Stephen Halbrook and Alan Korwin.
   
   
5. The Origin of the Second Amendment: A Documentary History of the Bill of Rights in Commentaries on Liberty, Free Government and an Armed Populace, 1787-1792, David Young (Editor).
   
   
6. Gun Control on Trial: Inside the Supreme Court Battle Over the Second Amendment, by Brian Doherty.
   
   
7. Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When the Government Breaks Its Own Laws, by Andrew Napolitano.
   
   
8. The Constitution of Liberty, by Friedrich Hayek.
   
   
9. The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, by Edwin Meese, Matthew Spalding and David Forte.

I highly recommend the first to books listed (in bold), though each of these books on the list is a fairly decent review of the Constitution, the Second Amendment, the evolution of jurisprudence, and a good history lesson about who we are as a People. Well worth reading, to develop a well-rounded understanding of it all.

Caution, though: it'll likely take you a good year to devour everything on the list, if not longer.

Enjoy!

[TX expat]

The Essential Second Amendment Guide - Wayne LaPierre

[bklynboy]

I recommend you start with the reference page on the web site of 2A advocate and lawyer Dave Kopel. In addition to books listed, there are links to a number of mass circulation and scholarly articles on the 2A. Also take a looks at the resources page from the Second Amendment Foundation.

Books and journal articles by Dave Kopel
Second Amendment Foundation Online

[ccw9mm]

Here is a list of books and essays posted by the NRA Institute for Legislative Action.

NRA-ILA -- The Second Amendment


For more information on the constitutionality of gun laws, see:

• Caplan, David I., "Handgun Control: Constitutional or Unconstitutional?," North Carolina Central Law Journal, 5 (1976): 53-58.
  
  
• Cottrol, Robert J., ed., Gun Control and the Constitution: Sources and Explorations on the Second Amendment, New York, Garland Publishing, Inc., 1994.
  
  
• Kates, Don B., Jr., "Handgun Prohibition and The Original Meaning of the Second Amendment," Michigan Law Review, 82 (1983): 204.
  
  
• Kopel, David B., "The Supreme Court`s Thirty-Five Other Gun Cases: What The Supreme Court Has Said About The Second Amendment," Saint Louis University Public Law Review, 1999: 99-187.

For more information on crime statistics, see:

• Bureau of Justice Statistics, "Guns Used in Crime," July 1995
  
  
• FBI, Uniform Crime Reports, Crime in the United States, Published each year.

For more information on the effectiveness of gun laws, see:

• Kates, Don B. Jr., et al., "Problematic Arguments for Banning Handguns," Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy 1997 Pp. 31-49 in D.B. Kates and G. Kleck, eds., The Great American Gun Debate: Essays on Firearms and Violence. San Francisco: Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy.
  
  
• Kates, Don B., Jr., Guns, Murders, and the Constitution: A Realistic Assessment of Gun Control, Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, 1990.
  
  
• Kleck, Gary, Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control, Hawthorne, N.Y.: Aldine de Gruyter, 1997.
  
  
• Polsby, Daniel D., "The False Promise of Gun Control," Atlantic Monthly, 273 (1994): 57.
  
  
• The Great American Gun Debate: Essays on Firearms and Violence, San Francisco: Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, 1997
  
  
• Nisbet, Lee, editor, The Gun Control Debate: You Decide, Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1990;
  
  
• Wright, James D., "Second Thoughts About Gun Control," Public Interest, No. 91 (1988): 23-39.

For more information on general constitutional issues, see:

• Amar, Akil Reed and Alan Hirsch, For the People: What the Constitution Really Says About Your Rights, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1998.
  
  
• Amar, Akhil Reed, "The Bill of Rights as a Constitution," Yale Law Journal, 100 (1990): 1131-1164.
  
  
• Caplan, David I., "Restoring the Balance: Second Amendment Revisited," Fordham Urban Law Journal, 5 (1976): 31-53.
  
  
• Halbrook, Stephen P., A Right to Bear Arms: State and Federal Bills of Rights and Constitutional Guarantees, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press (1989).
  
  
• Polsby, Daniel D., "Second Reading: Treating the Second Amendment as Normal Constitutional Law," Reason, March ,1996, 32-36.
  
  
• Wright, James D., "Ten Essential Observations on Guns in America," Society, March-April, 1995, 62-67.

For more information on history of firearms rights, see:

• Cottrol, Robert J. & Raymond T. Diamond, "The Second Amendment: Toward an Afro-Americanist Reconsiderations," Georgetown Law Journal, 1991, 309-361
  
  
• Cramer, Clayton E., "The Racist Roots of Gun Control," Kansas Journal of Law & Public Policy, Winter 1995, at 17.
  U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, The Right to Keep and Bear Arms, 97th Cong., 2d sess., 1982.
  
  
• Halbrook, Stephen P., Origin and Development of the Second Amendment, Southport, Conn.: Blacksmith Corporation, 1986.
  
  
• Halbrook, Stephen P., That Every Man Be Armed--The Evolution of a Constitutional Right, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984.
  
  
• Malcolm, Joyce Lee, To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994.
  
  
• Malcolm, Joyce Lee, "The Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms: The Common Law Tradition," Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, 10 (1983): 285-314.

For more information on the individual right to bear arms, see:

• Bordenet, Bernard J., "The Right to Possess Arms: The Intent of the Framers of the Second Amendment," University of West Los Angeles Law Review, 21 (1990).
  
  
• Cantrell, Charles L., "The Right of the Individual to Bear Arms," Wisconsin Bar Bulletin, 53 (Oct. 1980): 21.
  
  
• Caplan, David I., "The Right of the Individual to Bear Arms: A Recent Judicial Trend," Detroit College of Law Review, (1982): 789-823.
  
  
• Cramer, Clayton E., For the Defense of Themselves and the State: The Original Intent and Judicial Interpretation of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Westport, Conn., Praeger Press, 1994.
  
  
• Halbrook, Stephen P., "Congress Interprets the Second Amendment: Declarations by a Co-Equal Branch on the Individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms," Tennessee Law Review, 62 (1995): 597.
  
  
• Halbrook, Stephen P., "Personal Security, Personal Liberty, and `The Constitutional Right to Bear Arms`: Visions of the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment," 5 Seton Hall Constitutional Law Journal 341-434 (1995).
  
  
• Levinson, Sanford, "The Embarrassing Second Amendment," Yale Law Journal, 99 (1989): 637.
  U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, The Right to Keep and Bear Arms, 97th Cong., 2d sess., 1982.
  
  
• Van Alstyne, William, "The Second Amendment and the Personal Right to Arms," 43 Duke Law Journal 1236-1255 (1994).

For more information on international gun laws, see:

• van Kesteren, John, Pat Mayhew and Paul Nieuwbeerta, "Criminal Victimization in Seventeen Industrialized Countries: Key findings from the 2000 International Crime Victims Survey," the Hague, Ministry of Justice, WODC, Onderzoek en beleid, nr. 187, 2000.
  
  
• Kopel, David B., The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy: Should America Adopt the Gun Controls of Other Democracies?, Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1992.

For more information on the Second Amendment and Crime, see:

• Kleck, Gary, Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America, Hawthorne, N.Y.: Aldine de Gruyter, 1991.
  
  
• Lott, John R., Jr., More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws, Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
  
  
• Sheley, Joseph F. and James D. Wright, In the Line of Fire: Youth, Guns, and Violence in Urban America, N.Y.: Aldine de Gruyter, 1995;
  
  
• Wright, James D., and Peter H. Rossi, Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms, New York: Aldine De Gruyter, 1986.
  
  
• Wright, James D., et al., Under the Gun: Weapons, Crime and Violence in America, New York: Aldine Publishing Co., 1983.

For more information on the Founders` intent, see:

• Halbrook, Stephen P., "The Right of the People or the Power of the State: Bearing Arms, Arming Militias, and the Second Amendment," Valparaiso Law Review, 26 (1991): 131-207.
  
  
• Halbrook, Stephen P., "What the Framers Intended: A Linguistic Analysis of the Right to ’Bear Arms,`"; Law & Contemporary Problems, 49 (1986): 151.

* Bolded items are ones I have read myself and which I recommend.

[SigPapa226]

Great Job guys. Appreciate you posting the above 2A Resources.

[1MoreGoodGuy]

I vote to "Sticky" this thread.

[Crowman]

Books on Gun Rights and the Second Amendment
Amazon.com: Books on Gun Rights and the Second Amendment

[luvmy40]

I highly recommend the Second Amendment Primer by Les Adams to everyone I talk with.

[phreddy]

I vote to "Sticky" this thread.

I second it.

[phreddy]

Also, Look up the United States v. Miller decision.