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     The controversy relating to the fabrication of data and history in the book Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture, by Michael A. Bellesiles, New York: Alfred A. Knopf has grown in importance and content that it deserves its own page here.  One importance of this controversy is the revealed truth about deception by Bellesiles, lack of intellectual depth and character by the people who supported him, and the corruption his book worked on our system (it was cited in legal opinions). But Bellesiles is caught out and we must do the same for the other frauds among our opponents.

Article Links

  • The 5th Circuit Court Decision in the Emerson Appeal, Nov. 2, 2001, No. 99-10331, or second, supports the Second
        Amendment as preserving an individual right and references historic and legal justification for this decision. See
        the original opinion by Judge Sam Cummings, transcribed and linked to references by the SAF tracing the history
        of government restriction of arms ownership (swords, armor, firearms) back to England, before the US existed.
        The US Justice Dept. Emerson Brief opposing Certiorari announces a recognition that the Second Amendment
        reflects an individual right, but says regulation of that right for criminals and certain guns is possible.

  • THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS, REPORT OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION, OF THE COMMITTEE
        ON THE JUDICIARY, UNITED STATES SENATE, NINETY-SEVENTH CONGRESS, also 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th.
  • Comprehensive Bibliography Of The Second Amendment In Law Reviews, David B. Kopel
  • Bodin, Beccaria, and Bastiat, Dave Kopel, September 1999
  • Do Federal Gun Traces Accurately Reflect Street Crime?  Small Fraction of Guns Selected for National Trace
        may not be Typical of Ordinary Crime Guns, David B. Kopel, Feb. 2, 1993
  • IT ISN'T ABOUT DUCK HUNTING: THE BRITISH ORIGINS OF THE RIGHT TO ARMS, David B. Kopel, 93 Mich. L Rev.,
        1333-1362 (1995).
  • THE SULLIVAN PRINCIPLES: PROTECTING THE SECOND AMENDMENT FROM CIVIL ABUSE, David B. Kopel &
        Richard E. Gardiner, 19 Seton Hall Legis. J., 737-775 (1995)
  • Trust the People: The Case Against Gun Control, David B. Kopel, July 11, 1988
  • The Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms: The Common Law Tradition, Joyce Lee Malcolm,
        10 Hastings Const. L. Q. 285-314 (1983), also here
  • BOOK REVIEW -- Is the True Meaning of the Second Amendment Really Such a Riddle? Tracing the Historical
        "Origins of an Anglo-American Right", Joyce Lee Malcolm, To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-
        American Right (Harvard University Press, 1994). Reviewed By T. Markus Funk, 39 Howard L.J. 411-436 (1995).
  • Personal Security, Personal Liberty, and ‘The Constitutional Right to Bear Arms’: Visions of
        the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment, S. P. Halbrook, 5 Seton Hall Const. L.J. 341-434 (1995)
  • The Right to Keep and Bear Arms under the 2nd and 14th Amendments, Stephen P. Halbrook
  • What the Framers Intended: A Linguistic Analysis of the Right to ‘Bear Arms’, Stephen P. Halbrook,
        49 Law & Contemp. Probs. 151-162 (1986)
  • THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS IN THE FIRST STATE BILLS OF RIGHTS PA, NC, VE, AND MA, Stephen P. Halbrook,
        10 Vt. L. Rev. 255-320 (1985)
  • TO KEEP AND BEAR THEIR PRIVATE ARMS: THE ADOPTION OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT 1787-1791, Stephen P.
        Halbrook, (1982)
  • The Jurisprudence of the Second and Fourteenth Amendments, Stephen P. Halbrook
  • Congress Interprets The Second Amendment: Declarations By A Co-Equal Branch On The Individual
        Right To Keep And Bear Arms, Stephen P. Halbrook
  • Tench Coxe and the Right to Keep and Bear Arms in the Early Republic, D. B. Kopel & S. P. Halbrook,
        from William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal, February 1999
  • The Embarrassing Second Amendment, Sanford Levinson, 99 Yale Law Journal, pp. 637-659
  • Guns and Self-Defense, Gary Kleck, Ph.D., from Stopping Power: Why 70 Million Americans Own Guns,
        by J. Neil Schulman (Walter de Gruyter, 1997)
  • Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun, Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz,
        Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, Northwestern Univ. School of Law, Vol. 86, #1, Fall, 1995
  • Guns and Violence: A Summary of the Field, Gary Kleck, a summary of his book POINT BLANK: GUNS AND
         VIOLENCE IN AMERICA
    (Aldine de Gruyter, 1991)
  • POLICY LESSONS FROM RECENT GUN CONTROL RESEARCH, GARY KLECK, Law and Contemporary Problems,
        vol. 49, no. 1, 1986: 35.
  • Sources on the Second Amendment and Rights to Keep and Bear Arms in State Constitutions,
        Prof. E. Volokh, UCLA Law School
  • Testimony of Eugene Volokh on the Second Amendment, second, third Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution,
        Sept. 23, 1998 (reprinted as A Right of the People, California Political Review, Nov./Dec. 1998, p. 23)
  • The Commonplace Second Amendment --Prof. E. Volokh, UCLA Law School, 73 NYU L. Rev. 793 (1998)
  • False Promise of Gun Control, Daniel D. Polsby, The Atlantic Monthly, March 1994
  • American Homocide Exceptionalism, Daniel D. Polsby & Don B. Kates, Jr., University of Colorado Law Review,
        vol. 69, no. 4, 1998: 969
  • GUNS, WORDS, AND CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION, L.A. Powe, 38 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 1311-1403 (1997).
  • Professional Discourse, The Second Amendment and the "Talking Head Constitutionalism" Counterrevolution: A
        Review Essay, B.P. Denning, 21 Southern Illinois Univ. Law Journal 227-253 (1997).
  • Of Holocausts And Gun Control, Daniel D. Polsby & Don B. Kates Jr., Wash. U. Law Quarterly,
        v. 75, p. 1237, Fall 1997
  • Gun Prohibition Fails, Don B. Kates Jr., 1997.
  • UNDER FIRE: THE NEW CONSENSUS ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT and here, Randy E. Barnett, Don B. Kates,
        EMORY LAW JOURNAL, Fall 1996
  • A CRITICAL GUIDE TO THE SECOND AMENDMENT, Glenn Harlan Reynolds, 62 Tenn. L. Rev. 461-511 (1995)
  • A Primer on the Constitutional Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Glenn Harlan Reynolds, 62 Tenn. L. Rev. 461-511 (1995)
  • The Second Amendment and States' Rights: A Thought Experiment, Nelson Lund, J.D., Ph.D., Virginia Institute for
         Public Policy
    , Potomac Falls, Virginia, No. 7, June 2002
  • Speech by Don Kates at the Sacramento rally, 2 JUL 1994
  • GUNS AND PUBLIC HEALTH: EPIDEMIC OF VIOLENCE OR PANDEMIC OF PROPAGANDA?, Don B. Kates, Henry E.
        Schaffer, Ph.D., John K. Lattimer, M.D., George B. Murray, M.D., and Edwin H. Cassem, M.D., Tenn. L. Rev.,
        61, 1994, 513-596.
  • Don Kates' "Shorts", Don Kates, 1994
  • The Second Amendment and the Personal Right to Arms, William Van Alstyne, 43 DUKE L.J. 1236 (1994)
  • IS SELF-DEFENSE A RIGHT?, Don B. Kates Jr., 11 Jun 93.
  • The right to bear arms is, by law, an individual's, DON B. KATES, JR. AND ALAN J. LIZOTTE,
        San Jose Mercury News, 7B, December 7, 1993.
  • 2nd Amendment and the Ideology of Self-Protection, Don B. Kates Jr., Constitutional Commentary, Feb.,
        1992; article may also be found here.
  • Bigotry, Symbolism, and Ideology in the Battle over Gun Control, Don B. Kates Jr.,
        PUBLIC INTEREST LAW REVIEW, 1992.
  • The Value of Civilian Arms Possession As Deterrent To Crime Or Defense Against Crime;     Second,
        Third, Don B. Kates Jr., AMERICAN J. OF CRIM. LAW, 18, 1991
  • GUNS, MURDERS AND THE CONSTITUTION, GUN CONTROL: A REALISTIC ASSESSMENT, Don B. Kates Jr.,
        Pacific Research Institute, Feb. 1990 and here in PDF
  • Firearms and Violent Crime: Old Premises, Current Evidence, Don B. Kates Jr.,
        in T. Gurr, VIOLENCE IN AMERICA v. 1 , 1989
  • HANDGUN PROHIBITION AND THE ORIGINAL MEANING OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT, Don B. Kates Jr.,
        Mich. L. Rev., 82, 1983, 204-273
  • Who Repealed The Second Amendment? And By What Authority, Michael H. Brown
  • Racist Roots of Gun Control, here and here, Clayton E. Cramer, Kansas Journal of Law and Public Policy, Winter 1995
  • The Second Amendment Controversy -- Explained and here, Theodore L. Johnson
  • Dangerous Women, Self Defence and Civil Rights, R. L. Barrow JD & G. A. Mauser PH.D
  • Will gun control make us safe? Debunking the myths, G. A. Mauser, Sterling prize winner, 2001
  • Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns or HTML version, J. R. Lott & D. Mustard,
        26 J. Legal Stud. 1 (1997); see also U. of Chicago Page, More Guns, Less Crime and
        Should Gun Owners Believe John Lott?
  • Concealed-Carry Gun Laws and the Crime Rate, John R. Lott, et al (a real audio lecture)
  • Safe Storage Gun Laws: Accidental Deaths, Suicides, and Crime, J.R. Lott & J.E. Whitley, Rev. 3/29/2000
  • Transcript from debate between John Lott, author of More Guns, Less Crime, and Douglas Weil,
        research director of Handgun Control, Inc., July 1, 1998
  • The Fallacy Of Gun Control, Jim Montag
  • FIGHTING BACK, Crime, Self-Defense, and the Right to Carry a Handgun, Jeffrey R. Snyder
  • A Nation of Cowards, Two Sources: First, Second, Jeffrey R. Snyder, The Public Interest, Fall 1993
  • Guns in the Medical Literature: A Failure of Peer Review, Edgar A. Suter MD
  • Letter on 'Kellermann AL, Westphal L, Fischer L, and Harvard B. "Weapon Involvement in Home
        Invasion Crimes." JAMA. 1995; 273(22): 1759-62', Edgar A. Suter MD
  • The Second Amendment: Toward an Afro-Americanist Reconsideration, Robert J. Cottrol and Raymond T.
        Diamond, 80 Geo. L.J. 1991, 309-361
  • The Great Australian Gun Law Con
  • GUN CONTROL IN BRITAIN, second, third, By Sean Gabb, 1988.    A libertarian essay on British gun control from the UK.
  • The Second Amendment, Political Liberty, and the Right to Self-Preservation, Nelson Lund, 39 Ala. L. Rev.
        103-130 (1987).
  • Second Amendment SIG of Mensa
  • No Smoking Guns: Answering Objections to Right-to-Carry Laws, National Center for Policy Analysis
  • Myths About Gun Control, National Center for Policy Analysis
  • Reply to -- My Constitutional Right to Own a SAM
  • Observations on One-way Street: Can. Gun Control, National Firearms Association of Canada
  • Politics of Panic: REGISTRATION = CONFISCATION, National Firearms Association of Canada
  • Voodoo Social Policy , Jacob Sullum, Reason, adapted from Speech at 1994 Reason Weekend
  • Get America Up In Arms, William P. Fall
  • Things You Can Do To Defend Gun Rights, Alan Gottlieb and Dave Kopel
  • We don’t need no steenking 2nd Amendment by John Silveira

  • Last Updated on 8/24/07 By Phil Lee (pflee at wdn dot com)