Photo credit: The Second Amendment by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Alpha Stock Images

Introduction

This page examines the Second Amendment and the history of its interpretation.

Books and Articles on the Second Amendment

Mr DaveyD, Got Myself a Gun…The History of Race Based Gun Control. Hip-Hop and Politics, Jan 13, 2013.

Thom Hartmann, The Second Amendment Was Ratified to Preserve Slavery. TruthOut, Jan 15, 2013. although partially rebutted by Paul Finkelman, The Second Amendment Passed to Protect Slavery? No! The Root, Jan 21, 2013. although the underlying work Hartmann relies on is Sally E. Hadden, The Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas. Harvard University Press | Amazon page, 2001. Hadden identifies slave patrols as at least significantly overlapping with State militias.

John Paul Stevens, The Five Extra Words That Can Fix the Second Amendment. Washington Post, Apr 11, 2014.

Michael Waldman, How the NRA Rewrote the Second Amendment. Politico, May 19, 2014.

Saul Cornell and Eric M. Ruben, The Slave-State Origins of Modern Gun Rights. The Atlantic, Sep 30, 2015. “The idea that citizens have an unfettered constitutional right to carry weapons in public originates in the antebellum South, and its culture of violence and honor.”

Saul Cornell, Guns Have Always Been Regulated. The Atlantic, Dec 17, 2015. “The effort of some U.S. Supreme Court justices to extend the Second Amendment’s protections to all guns in common use is at odds with its history.”

Ron Kampeas, How Israel Stays a "Well Regulated Militia" With So Many Guns Around. Times of Israel blog, Jun 18, 2016.

Adam Winkler, The Right to Bear Arms Has Mostly Been for White People. Washington Post, Jul 15, 2016.

David French, A Federal Court of Appeals Goes to War against the Second Amendment. National Review, Feb 22, 2017.

Robin Pennacchia, What America Is Getting Wrong About Three Important Words in the Second Amendment. Quartz, Feb 24, 2018.

Amy Lieu, Condoleeza Rice Says US Needs to Consider Second Amendment's Place in Modern World. Fox News, Feb 25, 2018.

John Paul Stevens, Repeal the Second Amendment. New York Times, Mar 27, 2018.

German Lopez, How the NRA Resurrected the Second Amendment. Vox, May 4, 2018.

Joseph Blocher and Eric Ruben, The Second Amendment Allows for More Gun Control Than You Think. Vox, May 23, 2018.

Saul Cornell, Don’t Ban Assault Weapons - Tax Them. The Atlantic, Aug 14, 2019.

Every Town Research, The Role of Guns & Armed Extremism in the Attack on the U.S. Capitol. Every Town Research, Jan 28, 2021.

Amber Ruffin, Why We Need a White History Month. The Amber Ruffin Show, Feb 5, 2021. From slave patrols to armed militias to the police.

Leeja Miller, This Is Why Americans Are So Obsessed With Guns (It's Not What You Expect). Leeja Miller, May 3, 2023. Miller helpfully compares Australia with the U.S., and isolates Christian fundamentalists who treat the Constitution as “the word of God” and the Second Amendment’s individualistic interpretation as sacred.

Kate Shaw and John Bash, We Clerked for Justices Scalia and Stevens. America Is Getting Heller Wrong. New York Times, May 31, 2022.

Joshua Zeitz, The Supreme Court’s Faux ‘Originalism’. Politico, Jun 26, 2022. “The conservative Supreme Court's favorite judicial philosophy requires a very, very firm grasp of history — one that none of the justices seem to possess.” “The concept of a “well-regulated” community — one in which order prevailed, and one which male citizens had a duty to uphold — was not a rhetorical quirk specific to the Second Amendment. It was a pervasive term. The founding generation shared a widespread belief that there was a tension between “natural liberty and those principles of equal security established in a well-regulated society.” In this context, most Americans in the 1790s would have found the Second Amendment crystal clear. The federal government could not prevent citizens from dispatching their obligation to protect their communities, namely, by maintaining armed militias.” Cites the examples of Pennsylvania’s and Massachusetts’ state constitutions on the collective rights and obligations to bear arms. Thomas Jefferson tried to include an individual right in Virginia’s, and failed, as did those in other states. New York’s law imposed penalties on any individual who “bear[s] a gun out of his inclosed ground, unless whilst performing military duty.” Then, under the 14th Amendment, the Grant administration defended the right of black citizens to bear arms in militias to protect their communities.

Devon James, Did Hunter Biden Get a Sweetheart Deal? Legal Eagle, Jun 29, 2023. The second charge against Hunter Biden involves his gun purchase while addicted to cocaine, which surprisingly is probably nullified by recent SCOTUS interpretations of the Second Amendment.

Brian Tyler Cohen and Jamie Raskin, Jamie Raskin Issues Brilliant Second Amendment Debunking. Brian Tyler Cohen | Class with Jamie Raskin, Mar 23, 2024. Some MAGA Republicans, including Congresspeople, argue that the Second Amendment enshrines a right to rebel against the government, which is legally absurd and practically dangerous.

Evan Perez and Hannah Rabinowitz, Trump DOJ Is Looking at Ways to Ban Transgender Americans from Owning Guns. CNN, Sep 4, 2025.