Part IV Rights, Ch.35 The Right to Bear Arms
Saul Cornell
From: The Oxford Handbook of the U.S. Constitution
Edited By: Mark Tushnet, Sanford Levinson, Mark A. Graber
Modern American society is awash in a sea of guns. Estimates vary, but some scholars place the number of firearms in private hands at over three hundred million. Contemporary American politics is dominated by two opposing and antagonistic positions: one pro-gun and the other pro-regulation. Ironically, in the Founding era regulation and arms bearing were not seen as antithetical, but were inextricably linked together. In theory, all citizens capable of bearing arms, a substantial subset of the adult white male population, were required to outfit themselves with a...
