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I notice that he relies repeatedly on Bellesiles's
Arming America: the supposed "gun censuses" of the states; the 14% of white men
owned guns based on probate inventories; the claim of strict regulation of gun
ownership by the states; and many other claims that have been demonstrated to be
false. You might assume that Urofsky relied heavily on Arming America, and
just didn't notice the controversy over it. Yet when he suggests further
reading,
For further reading: Saul Cornell, ed., Whose Right to Bear Arms Did the Second Amendment Protect? (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000). Robert Cottrell, ed., Gun Control and the Constitution (New York: Garland Publishing Co., 1994). Wilbert Edel, Gun Control: Threat to Liberty or Defense Against Anarchy? (Westport: Praeger, 1995). Robert J. Spitzer, The Right to Bear Arms: Rights and Liberties under the Law (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2001). Where is Bellesiles's book? (Oh yes, Cottrol, not Cottrell.) "In 1960, a law professor, Stuart Hays, first suggested that private ownership of guns was a privilege protected by the Second Amendment, and that prior court decisions tying it only to the militia had been mistaken." This is nonsense; the Georgia Supreme Court took this position as early as 1846, and there are dozens of decisions from the 19th century that either directly stated that the Second Amendment protected an individual right to arms: some as a limitation only on federal law, and a few as a limitation on state laws as well. Urofsky clearly hasn't done much reading on this subject--at least from more than one side. "Ten years later, the Court addressed the issue of state power in Presser v. Illinois (1886), when it upheld a state law that prohibited paramilitary organizations from drilling or parading without a license from the governor. Once again, the Court noted that the Second Amendment applied only to the federal government, and that states were free to regulate the ownership and use of weapons by individual citizens." It is a shame that Urofsky didn't read Presser: "It is undoubtedly true that all citizens capable of bearing arms constitute
the reserved military force or reserve militia of the United States as well as
of the States, and in view of this prerogative of the general government, as
well as of its general powers, the States cannot, even laying the constitutional
provision Does the Department of State pick their vendor by lowest bid? Clayton E. Cramer
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