Firearms Law and the Second Amendment
The 2nd Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified on December 15, 1791. Then, for the next 217 years, a hodgepodge of laws and rules were enacted that infringed on the civil right that it guaranteed. Then, in 2008 and 2010, two Supreme Court cases on the Second Amendment, District of Columbia v. Heller, and McDonald v. Chicago nullified much of the infringement and stimulated widespread interest in the "palladium right" that is guaranteed by the Constitution.
In March 2012, Aspen Publishers, along with author's Nicholas J. Johnson, David B. Kopel, Michael P. O'Shea, and George Mocsary introduced the first law school textbook that specifically focuses on the subject of the 2nd Amendment. Copies are available at Amazon.com.
Co-author David Kopel, in a series of chapter-by-chapter audio (Mp3) interviews with Justin Longo of iVoices.org, explains the research and depth of coverage of this new book: Chapter One (An introduction to firearms laws and firearms function) , Chapter Two (Antecedents of the Second Amendment: From Confucius to the British Whigs), Chapter Three (The Colonies and the Revolution), Chapter Four (A closer look at the verbiage and meaning behind the words used in the Second Amendment), Chapter 5. (The Early Republic, and the Antebellum Era.), with more to follow.
There is also a free public website that provides additional resources, including suggested topics for student research papers, a comprehensive list of published law review articles and ALR Annotations on arms-law topics, and links to numerous Internet resources on firearms law and policy.
-fl