The Positive Second Amendment
Rights, Regulation, and the Future of Heller

Provides the first comprehensive post-Heller account of the Second Amendment as constitutional law - dispelling many myths along the way.

Joseph Blocher (Author), Darrell A.H. Miller (Author)

9781107158696, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 September 2018

212 pages
23.6 x 15.7 x 1.6 cm, 0.42 kg

'… a significant contribution to our understanding of the Second Amendment and the way we should approach understanding its impact on American public policy. This work is particularly relevant in light of the frequency that the public must grapple with the presence of guns in daily life.' Charles F. Jacobs, Law and Politics Book Review

The Second Amendment is among the most recognized provisions of the Constitution. It is also perhaps the most misunderstood. Common misconceptions about the amendment - what it forbids, what it permits, how it functions as law - distort the gun debate and America's constitutional culture. In The Positive Second Amendment, Blocher and Miller provide the first comprehensive post-Heller account of the history, theory, and law of the right to keep and bear arms. Their aim is not to pick sides in the gun debate, but rather to show how a positive account of the 'constitutional' Second Amendment differs from its political cousin. Understanding the right to keep and bear arms as constitutional law will challenge many deeply held beliefs. But it may also provide a better way to negotiate the seemingly intractable issues that afflict America's debate over gun rights and regulation.

Introduction: the gun debate and the Constitution
1. Gun rights and regulation in American history
2. Militias, private purposes, and the road to Heller
3. Understanding Heller
4. Heller's aftermath: 'a vast Terra Incognita'
5. The constitutional grammar of the Second Amendment
6. What is the Second Amendment for?
7. Second Amendment law and the gun debate.

Subject Areas: Constitutional & administrative law [LND], Laws of Specific jurisdictions [LN], Central government [JPQ], Political science & theory [JPA], Politics & government [JP]