Robert E. Shalhope, author of “The Armed Citizen in the Early Republic,” explores the controversy regarding the Second Amendment and concludes that the Second Amendment guarantees United States citizens the right to keep and bear arms. Shalhope, a specialist in eighteenth and nineteenth century American political culture, has a strong background in history as he is the George Lynn Cross Research Professor of History at the University of Oklahoma. Even though there are many different interpretations of the amendment, the Second Amendment clearly states that individuals have the right to bear arms. Shalhope argues that the Second Amendment provides every citizen the right to bear arms in order to protect themselves in the face of danger as well as to maintain freedom and liberty in a society.
Since its ratification in December of 1791, the Second Amendment has created a major controversy as Americans have been arguing over the meaning and interpretation of the amendment. Due to the controversy, “angry polarization and distortion, rather
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Cress argues that the right to bear arms should be given only to organized militia groups. However, it was clear that the Founding Fathers made no distinction between the militia and the people. The Second Amendment allows individuals to own guns and to be able to protect themselves. If the Founding Fathers wanted gun ownership to be for militias only, they would have specifically stated that in the Second Amendment. Cress ineffectively argues that the militias were an important part of protecting the people when in reality they were not well-trained and may not have been committed to the cause which rendered them ineffective. Therefore, Cress’ argument is not reflective of the attitudes of the Founding
Edmund Sears Morgan, the author of, The Birth of the Republic, was a Sterling Professor of History at Yale University. Morgan's studies focused on American colonial history and English history. He wrote many books examining the colonial period and the period of Revolution, an example of which is The Birth of the Republic. He is also known for writing a best-selling biography of Benjamin Franklin.1
Larry Sabato author of “A More Perfect Constitution” implies the United States Constitution could use some revision. Written over two hundred years ago, I do not think this concept is astonishing. I believe the founding father were aware of potential flaws, allowing for amendments or changes. Sabato book proposes some changes and the “calling for a twenty-first-century constitutional convention.” This book review will look at four of Sabato suggestions; reforming the Senate, balancing the budget, a six-year presidential term, and the Electoral College. These four recommendations were of greatest interest and intrigue. Although I do agree with all his ideas, I do feel there is more to improvement in our constitution and commend his efforts is awakening the American people to a need for reform.
Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard is a non fiction book on the killing of James
United States is a country that has problems with gun control, and this issue has many debates between whether or not people should be allowed to carry a gun on them. This free county not only for speech and religion, but also allows people to have the right to bear arms. The Second Amendment of the United States was written by our Founding Fathers,“A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed” (Government). The main purpose of the Second Amendment when our Founding Fathers wrote this amendment was to help the American citizens to defend themselves from the government at that time, and other countries from invading their properties. However, the Second Amendment could be the opposite of what our Founding Fathers wanted it to be in the twenty-first century, because many criminals are taking advantage of the right to carry guns, which in example results with the purpose of showing off with their friends, revenge for their gang’s members, or try to be like their favorite hero in the movie they had watched. On July 20, 2012, a massive shooting occurred inside of a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. The tragedy happened during a midnight screening of the film The Dark Knight Rises which killed twelve people and injuring seventy others. In response, this alarmed our government to rethink about the current gun control law in America. In A Well Regulated Militia by Saul Cornell, the author informed to his audience the different views of gun ownership in early America, which part was the most important part of the debate, how did slavery affect the debate over militias in the South, the Continental army officer’s views, and the arguments be...
One reason we must have the second amendment is to protect the freedom for which our country fought so hard to win. The Declaration of Independence states: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”[1] However, if these rights were ‘self-evident’, why did the founding fathers need to grant them to the states? We might as well ask why man is the way that he is, imperfect. We all wonder about this sad truth, but the fact remains that man is fallen. These rights are self-evident, obvious to human reason, but because humans are fallen, we are sometimes blinded to these apparent truths and we err in our rationality. King George was blind to these unalienable rights, as were Na...
The Second Amendment states, “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” This statement basically means that people should be able to own guns for their own security and that right should not be taken away. The Second Amendment was added to the Constitution because the creators of the Constitution wanted to make sure that it protected basic rights, including the right to bear arms. It was also added to the Constitution because shortly after it was ratified, James Madison wanted to give more power to the state militia and to give more power to the people to give them the ability to fight back against the Federalists and the tyrannical government they were creating. After fighting off the British, the Second Amendment was created to give citizens the opportunity to fight back against controlling government and protect themselves with their own weapons.
The Second Amendment to the Constitution(Second Amendment) of the United States of America(USA) is one of the most controversial. The Second Amendment specifically grants that, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed"
Quite literally all the evidence from the Founding Fathers shows that there was a consensus as to what the original intent and the original meaning of the Second Amendment was. The Second Amendment was written to keep the power in the hands of the people. Its intent was to ensure that every person was able to take up arms and join other people to fight off tyrants, invaders, or unjustified insurrections. Its meaning was that the government couldn’t infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear ar...
The United State of America, established by the Founding Father who lead the American Revolution, accomplished many hardship in order to construct what America is today. As history established America’s future, the suffering the United State encountered through history illustrate America’s ability to identify mistakes and make changes to prevent the predictable. The 2nd Amendment was written by the Founding Father who had their rights to bear arms revoked when they believe rising up to their government was appropriate. The Twentieth Century, American’s are divided on the 2nd Amendment rights, “The right to bear arms.” To understand why the Founding Father written this Amendment, investigating the histories and current measures may help the American people gain a better understanding of gun’s rights in today’s America.
After American colonialists had succeeded in over throwing British rule, the thirteen states were troubled by a complicated dilemma, an economic crisis with some calling for tax relief while others demanded stringent fiscal enforcement. Some believed that the revolution had not gone far enough, while others believed it had gone too far. The Framers who created the American Constitution took on the task of appeasing these two seemingly incongruous views. Woody Holton, in Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution, attempts to reveal how the Framers acted in favour of those who believed the Revolution had gone too far, while trying to appease the majority – American farmers – were in favour of more democracy.
This debate has produced two familiar interpretations of the Second Amendment. Advocates of stricter gun control laws have tended to stress that the amendment’s militia clause guarantees nothing to the individual and that it only protects the states’ rights to be able to maintain organized military units. These people argue that the Second Amendment was merely used to place the states’ organized military forces beyond the federal government’s power to be able to disarm them. This would guarantee that the states would always have sufficient force at their command to abolish federal restraints on their rights and to resist by arms if necessary. T...
For years proposals for gun control and the ownership of firearms have been among the most controversial issues in modern American politics. The public debate over guns in the United States is often seen as having two side. Some people passionately assert that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to own guns while others assert that the Second Amendment does no more than protect the right of states to maintain militias. There are many people who insist that the Constitution is a "living document" and that circumstances have changed in regard to an individual’s right to bear arms that the Second Amendment upholds. The Constitution is not a document of total clarity and the Second Amendment is perhaps one of the worst drafted of all its amendments and has left many Americans divided over the true intent.
The second amendment states “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The Founding Fathers included this in the Bill of Rights because they feared the Federal Government might oppress the population if the people did not have the means to defend themselves as a nation or individuals.
Professional champions of civil rights and civil liberties have been unwilling to defend the underlying principle of the right to arms. Even the conservative defense has been timid and often inept, tied less, one suspects, to abiding principle and more to the dynamics of contemporary Republican politics. Thus a right older than the Republic, one that the drafters of two constitutional amendments the Second and the Fourteenth intended to protect, and a right whose critical importance has been painfully revealed by twentieth-century history, is left undefended by the lawyers, writers, and scholars we routinely expect to defend other constitutional rights. Instead, the Second Amendment’s intellectual as well as political defense has been left in the unlikely hands of the National Rifle Association (NRA). And although the NRA deserves considerably better than the demonized reputation it has acquired, it should not be the sole or even principal voice in defense of a major constitutional provision.
The subject matter of the “Republic” is the nature of justice and its relation to human existence. Book I of the “republic” contains a critical examination of the nature and virtue of justice. Socrates engages in a dialectic with Thrasymachus, Polemarchus, and Cephalus, a method which leads to the asking and answering of questions which directs to a logical refutation and thus leading to a convincing argument of the true nature of justice. And that is the main function of Book I, to clear the ground of mistaken or inadequate accounts of justice in order to make room for the new theory. Socrates attempts to show that certain beliefs and attitudes of justice and its nature are inadequate or inconsistent, and present a way in which those views about justice are to be overcome.