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    The Second Amendment: A Biography
    The Second Amendment: A Biography
    The Second Amendment: A Biography
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Second Amendment: A Biography

    Written by Michael Waldman

    Narrated by John Glouchevitch

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Widely acclaimed at the time of its publication, the life story of the most controversial, volatile, misunderstood provision of the Bill of Rights

    At a time of increasing gun violence in America, Waldman's book provoked a wide range of discussion. 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 twentieth 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.

    Editor's Note

    A loaded debate…

    A necessary deep dive into the increasingly contested Amendment that’s led to Senate filibusters and House sit-ins. A concise yet sweeping look at how the Second Amendment has been reinterpreted since its inception.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMay 29, 2018
    ISBN9781977381866
    Author

    Michael Waldman

    Michael Waldman is president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, a nonpartisan law and policy institute that works to revitalize the nation’s systems of democracy and justice. He was director of speechwriting for President Bill Clinton from 1995 to 1999 and is the author of The Second Amendment: A Biography and The Fight to Vote. Waldman was a member of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court. A graduate of Columbia College and NYU School of Law, he comments widely in the media on law and policy.

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    Reviews for The Second Amendment

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    • 5/5
      Excellent in-depth analysis of the history of the Second Amendment through fairly modern times. The author tries to present all perspectives and avoids being overly biased. It's worth listening to or reading and the author even provides a list of diverse references at the end.
    • 4/5
      The Second Amendment is only twenty seven words in a single sentence: “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.”

      Guns represent a microcosm of an America divided between left and right, urban and rural, collective and individual rights. It’s complicated further because it is encoded in the Bill of Rights

      Written in a logical order so it is easy to follow, this was an excellent history of the second amendment. It's comprised of three sections. Part One is the story of how and why the constitution was written. Part Two takes us through the interpretations of the amendment. Part Three is the debate on gun violence.

      In the end, everyone has their own opinion on whether the Second Amendment protect militias or an individual right to a gun.
      Waldman’s answer: both, and neither.


      1451
    • 4/5
      The Second Amendment: A Biography is a thorough history of "the right to bear arms" in America from colonial period to today.  Bearing arms has always been seen necessary for hunting and self-defense, but in Colonial America the greatest purpose of gun ownership was the duty of serving in a citizen militia for mutual defense.  The idea of militias was highly regarded in the culture of the time since its membership included the most prominent members of the community whereas the regular army drew from the dregs of society. There was a fear of standing armies being a temptation for tyrannical rulers, so the civilian militia was seen as the ideal.When the Constitution was sent to the states to be ratified, many opponents complained that it did not include a bill of rights and submitted over 100 suggestions for inclusion in a list of rights.  The Framers of the Constitution for the most part didn't consider a Bill of Rights necessary since they were already encoded in most state constitutions, and by the time the first Congress met the push for a Bill of Rights had faded away.  Ironically, James Madison was among the leaders who didn't see a necessity for a federal Bill of Rights, but as his constituents were particularly adamant about the issue, he took it upon himself to whittle down and combine the many suggestions into the Bill of Rights we know today.Waldman takes the time to discuss how this process of revision, combinations, and debate lead to the awkwardly worded Second Amendment that we know today.  He also cites records of the drafting to show that the concerns underlying the Second Amendment were related to individual gun ownership and self-defense as many activists insist today. Waldman examines the quotes the Second Amendment activists use from leaders like Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry and shows that they are used out of context or are irrelevant to the Second Amendment.The idea and practice of the militia evolved over time with the Civil War prompting a major growth in a federal military.  By World War I, the United States had the standing army many early Americans feared, and militias had all but evaporated.  Even within these changing times, courts still interpreted the Second Amendment as a communal rather than individual right. When the Franklin Roosevelt administration introduced bans on machine guns and sawed-off shotguns, event the president of the National Rifle Association wrote in support of sensible gun regulations.The great societal upheavals of the 1960s - especially expanded civil rights for Black Americans and urban riots - lead to a backlash among conservative white people who began emphasizing the right to firearms for individual defense. At a NRA convention in Cincinnati in 1977, the more conservative members revolted against leadership and moved the organization to be the activist gun rights lobbying organization we're familiar with today. At the same time, judicial appointees from the Nixon and Reagan (and later the Bushes) made the courts more conservative in their interpretations of the Second Amendment.  Waldman focuses particularly on Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and his idea of following the original intent of the Framers. Waldman demonstrates that original intent is actually a reactionary and activist position. Over Scalia's long career on the Supreme Court, he went to being an outlier on the idea of Constitutional originalism to being in a judiciary where such interpretations were widespread.  Which leads to the landmark case of District of Columbia v. Heller where the Supreme Court affirmed for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to bear arms.Waldman's book is very detailed and provides a lot of interesting context for a thorny topic.  Regardless of where you stand on the issue, I expect this book will show you that there are a lot of things about the Second Amendment that are not what you thought.  This is a good book to read as we continue to grapple with the issues that come at the conflict of individual rights and communal responsibilities.
    • 4/5
      I learned a lot
    • 4/5
      This 2014 book tells well the history of the Second Amendment, which provides "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." For nigh unto 200 years this amendment was not deemed to give an individual any right except as a part of the militia. But the NRA and the gun manufacturers have managed to turn it into a pro-gun possession vehicle--culminating in 2008 in the 5 to 4 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller 554 U.S. 570 which simply ignores the first 13 words of the Amendment and makes meaningful gun regulation much more difficult, to the delight of gun wielders and the dismay of persons opposed to limitless gun usage.
    • 5/5
      Excellent writing, breezy but substantive, by telling the story of the Second Amendment Michael Waldman also elucidates legal history, constitutional interpretation, and the dynamics of the gun debate going forward. Very enjoyable and informative.