By Kevin M. Sweeney and Saul Cornell Chronicle of Higher Education/Chronicle Review http://chronicle.com/article/All-Guns-Are-Not-Created-Equal/136805/
This short article tries to show that there always was a distinction between militia arms and the firearms owned by the population. It starts by mentioning that Bellesiles "revisionist thesis was soon discredited for its dishonest use of historical evidence" and then that left "the suspect counternarrative put forth by some legal scholars and the National Rifle Association." go unchallenged even though it was a "mythical history". Then it gets into the differences between the popular firearms in 1791 vs the ones in use today - and seems to argue that the 2A only applies to the firearms of 1791, not to the handgun that Dirty Harry likes. I end up feeling that the authors are spinning this - and would much preferred if they had contrasted this with the 1A and the printing press of 1791 vs the electric motor driven ones of today and the Internet. Am I being too harsh? --henry schaffer P.S. More to come: 'Sweeney is the author of "Firearms, Militias, and the Second Amendment," which will appear in August in The Second Amendment on Trial: Critical Essays on District of Columbia v. Heller, edited by Cornell and Nathan Kozuskanich (University of Massachusetts Press, 2013).' _______________________________________________ To post, send message to [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/firearmsregprof Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
