A Right to Bear Arms?: The Contested Role of History in Contemporary Debates on the Second Amendment

PART I. GUNS AND FIREARMS OWNERSHIP IN SEVENTEENTH- AND EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND AND AMERICA Introduction to Part I 1. The Right to Bear Arms in English and Irish Historical Context Tim Harris 2. Who Had Guns in Eighteenth-Century Britain? Priya Satia 3. Firearms Ownership and Militias in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century England and America Kevin M. Sweeney 4. Limits on Armed Travel under Anglo-American Law: Change and Continuity over the Constitutional Longue Durée, 1688–1868 Saul Cornell 5. “You Never Dreamt of a Poysoned Bullet”: “Forbidden” Ammunition from the Sixteenth Century to the Present Jonathan S. Ferguson 6. Why Guns Are and Are Not the Problem: The Relationship between Guns and Homicide in American History Randolph Roth   PART II. THE RIGHT TO ARMS AND THE ANGLO-AMERICAN TRADITION: HISTORICAL DEBATE Introduction to Part II 7. English and American Gun Rights Lois G. Schwoerer 8. The Right to Be Armed: The Common Law Legacy in England and America      Joyce Lee Malcolm 9. The “Reasonable Regulation” Right to Arms: The Gun-Rights Second Amendment before the Standard Model Patrick J. Charles   PART III. HISTORY AND THE SUPREME COURT: OPPOSING LEGAL VIEWPOINTS Introduction to Part III 10. Going Armed: How Common Law Distinguishes the Peaceable Bearing of Arms from Carrying Weapons to Terrorize Others Stephen P. Halbrook 11. The Use and Misuse of History in Second Amendment Litigation Mark Anthony Frassetto           Appendix I. District of Columbia et al., Petitioners, v. Dick Anthony Heller, Respondent – Brief of the Cato Institute and History Professor Joyce Lee Malcolm as Amici Curiae in Support of Respondent Appendix II. District of Columbia et al., Petitioners, v. Dick Anthony Heller, Respondent – Brief of Amici Curiae Jack N. Rakove, Saul Cornell, David T. Konig, William J. Novak, Lois G. Schwoerer et al. in Support of Petitioners Bibliography