To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right

by Joyce Lee Malcolm

Book Overview

Joyce Malcolm illuminates the historical facts underlying the current passionate debate about gun-related violence, the Brady Bill, and the NRA, revealing the original meaning and intentions behind the individual right to "bear arms." Few on either side of the Atlantic realize that this extraordinary, controversial, and least understood liberty was a direct legacy of English law. This book explains how the Englishmen's hazardous duty evolved into...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674893077
• ISBN13: 9780674893078
• Release Date: February 1996
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 254 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Funk's Commentary in the Howard Law Journal

From T. Markus Funk, "Is the Second Amendment Really Such a Riddle? Tracing the Historical "Origins of an Anglo-American Right" 39 Howard Law Journal 411 (1995):Few topics of contemporary social, moral, and political debate can provoke as much raw emotion and open hostility as the Second Amendment, particularly in relation to the topic of gun prohibition. This subject routinely causes many well-intentioned people of whatever view to give up all pretense of courtesy and reason in favor of ad hominem attacks on those with whom they disagree. Readers of history professor Joyce Lee Malcolm's To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right will find these ugly by-products of the contemporary conflict refreshingly absent. Malcolm clearly keeps her distance from any broad normative judgments about the social utilities or costs of civilian firearms possession, offering instead a sober, scholarly, historical discussion of the Amendment's origins. Meticulously tracing the British history of regulations on firearms ownership from the Middle Ages on, she provides a detailed and illuminating history that includes the English Bill of Rights and, a century later, the American one. Because it is only in this historical context that the Second Amendment's meaning can be fully understood and appreciated, Malcolm's book is essential reading for anyone interested in this complex and controversial subject.

very impressive piece of scholarship

Professor Malcolm does a very thorough job of showing how the notion of a right to arms contained in the English Bill of Rights of 1689 (and which appeared in a broader form in the U.S. Bill of Rights) was developed during the English Civil War between King and Parliament, contrary to the claims of Parliament who described the right to arms as being one of their "ancient rights and liberties." Others who have examined this provision of the English Bill of Rights have sometimes let themselves be taken in by this high sounding language, but Professor Malcolm has been careful to look beneath the surface.The last chapter of the book examines how this right ended up in the U.S. Bill of Rights. While necessarily shorter than my detailed study in _For the Defense of Themselves and the State: The Original Intent and Judicial Interpretation of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms_ (Praeger, 1994), it is still a fine telling of the process by which the Second Amendment was adopted.

An excellent reference to counter authoritarian arguments.

Historical proof that the militia is all the people, and why that's so important to liberty. Proves how and why the Second Amendment is the cornerstone of our Bill Of Rights. Why the right to keep and bear arms is essential to maintaining a free nation. The first act of tyrants and those who commit genocide is always to disarm their victims, to minimize risk to themselves. Dr. Malcolm has written a great book that shows the historical basis of our liberty and why it's so important to keep this civil right intact.Without the means of enforcing them, against criminals, or even against despotic government, there ARE NO "civil rights".

A first-class piece of scholarship. Lucid and balanced.

A first class piece of work that should be included in the library of anyone seriously interested in the Second Amendment. The writing is lucid and graceful, the historical research is extensive and meticulous, and the presentation is balanced and scholarly.

Well researched examination of basis of 2nd Amendment

This is an intellectual treatment of a subject frequently dealt with only by emotion and politically correct positions. In a nutshell, sovereignty rests in the people and our Constitution. If we can't trust our citizenry with arms, how can we possibly trust them with the right to vote? We need to think hard before we casually let this fundamental right of a free people be taken away by those who would rule as elitists, or a modern day version of royalty.