Guns in Law

Guns in Law (Austin Sarat et al. eds., University of Massachusetts Press 2019).

Weapons have been a source of political and legal debate for centuries. Aristotle considered the possession of arms a fundamental source of political power and wrote that tyrants “mistrust the people and deprive them of their arms.” Today ownership of weapons—whether handguns or military-grade assault weapons—poses more acute legal problems than ever before. In this volume, the editors’ introduction traces the history of gun control in the United States, arguing that until the 1980s courts upheld reasonable gun control measures. The contributors confront urgent questions, among them the usefulness of history as a guide in ongoing struggles over gun regulation, the changing meaning of the Second Amendment, the perspective of law enforcement on guns and gun control law, and individual and relational perspectives on gun rights.

-Publisher's description

Guns across America

Robert Spitzer (SUNY Cortland), Guns Across America (Oxford University Press, 2015).

"As Robert J. Spitzer demonstrates in Guns across America, gun ownership is as old as the nation, but so is gun regulation. Drawing on a vast new dataset of early gun laws reflecting every imaginable type of regulation, Spitzer reveals that firearms were actually more strictly regulated in the country's first three centuries than in recent years. The first 'gun grabbers' were not 1960's Chablis-drinking liberals, but seventeenth century rum-guzzling pioneers, and their legacy continued through strict gun regulations in the 1920s and beyond. Spitzer examines interpretations of the Second Amendment, the assault weapons controversy, modern 'stand your ground' laws, and the so-called 'right of rebellion' to show that they play out in America's contemporary political landscape in ways that bear little resemblance to our imagined past." 
—Publisher’s description