Michael Waldman was on C-Span this morning talking about his book on the 2nd.

[Sancho]

Here's the link and description. He seems to help clear up some of the illogical arguments about the real history of the 2nd and it's meaning(s). Did anyone else see the show? Has anyone read the book? Looks interesting to me.


http://www.amazon.com/The-Second-Amendment-A-Biography/dp/147674744X/ref=pd_ybh_1

Here's the description:

"By the president of the prestigious Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, the life story of the most controversial, volatile, misunderstood provision of the Bill of Rights.

At a time of renewed debate over guns in America, what does the Second Amendment mean? This book looks at history to provide some surprising, illuminating answers.

The Amendment was written to calm public fear that the new national government would crush the state militias made up of all (white) adult men—who were required to own a gun to serve. Waldman recounts the raucous public debate that has surrounded the amendment from its inception to the present. As the country spread to the Western frontier, violence spread too. But through it all, gun control was abundant. In the 20th century, with Prohibition and gangsterism, the first federal control laws were passed. In all four separate times the Supreme Court ruled against a constitutional right to own a gun.

The present debate picked up in the 1970s—part of a backlash to the liberal 1960s and a resurgence of libertarianism. A newly radicalized NRA entered the campaign to oppose gun control and elevate the status of an obscure constitutional provision. In 2008, in a case that reached the Court after a focused drive by conservative lawyers, the US Supreme Court ruled for the first time that the Constitution protects an individual right to gun ownership. Famous for his theory of “originalism,” Justice Antonin Scalia twisted it in this instance to base his argument on contemporary conditions.

In The Second Amendment: A Biography, Michael Waldman shows that our view of the amendment is set, at each stage, not by a pristine constitutional text, but by the push and pull, the rough and tumble of political advocacy and public agitation."

[billh58]

1. A similar right-wing SCOTUS Gang of Five

who selected Dubya for president, and gave us Citizens United, also perverted the meaning of the Second Amendment in Heller with NRA mumbo-jumbo, and political corruption.

The NRA and the right-wing gun lobby has spent its money well in order to bury this country in guns and the death and injury they cause -- all in the name of greed and profits. In the process they have convinced a vocal minority of extremists that they are just "protecting the Constitution."

With each high-profile tragedy however, the American people are becoming more aware of the public health menace being caused by the obscene proliferation of guns in our society. Gun control organizations like Americans for Responsible Solutions, Moms Demand Action, and many others, are bringing needed attention and focus to the gun violence epidemic which plagues our country.

Support a gun control organization of your choice today in any way that you can, and help to stop the madness now.