Second Amendment Original Founding Era Sources And History

The Authoritative Period Information

     There is currently a major influx of visitors to On Second Opinion Blog seeking authoritative
information on the Second Amendment. The articles published at this blog and my other writings described below are based directly upon nearly a half century of research into original relevant Founding Era sources. For easy access to the numerous articles at this blog, look at the indexes at the top of this page. The easiest way to access information and links to all of my other printed and online research is at my website, SecondAmendmentInfoDotCom.
     What follows here is a concise description of my readily available Second Amendment historical research. In addition to the many historical fact checking articles published at this blog since January of 2009, I have edited and published the only source document collection with virtually every relevant period source, The Origin Of The Second Amendment(1991, 2001), and I have written and published the only definitive history of the
Second Amendment based directly on all of the relevant documents, The Founders' View Of The Right To Bear Arms(2007). Both of these books were extensively cited to the Supreme Court in the Heller case, and they were the only books that Alan Gura, winning attorney in the Heller case, has described as "the authoritative books on the subject" of the Second Amendment's history.
     My website, in addition to information on the above printed books, links directly to a number of online sources including The American Revolutionary Era Origin Of The Second Amendment's Clauses, my Journal on Firearms and Public Policy article (2011), which is essentially a much condensed version (about 21 pages) of my definitive history, The Founders' View Of The Right To Bear Arms.  The SecondAmendmentInfo website also links to a number of my articles documenting extensive historical errors in several amicus briefs supporting gun control in the Supreme Court's Heller case. These
include  an analysis of the brief from professional linguists that ignored all Bill of Rights context; an article on Chicago's erroneous Heller brief; one on the historically off-track brief from numerous organizations including the Education Fund; and a link to my History News Network Op-Ed (Feb.2008) noting numerous historical errors in the Heller brief filed by professional historians supporting the District of Columbia's gun control laws.
     This blog commenced on January 25, 2009 with the first part of series entitled Root Causes Of Never-Ending Second Amendment Dispute documenting the incredibly large number of historical errors and omissions of essential information in that professional historians' brief. The series runs to twenty-four parts (see Fisking Index above for direct links). I also have two different series of six articles (with takeoffs of selling the Brooklyn Bridge titles) dealing with numerous errors from professional historians' briefs in the MacDonald case where they attempted to re-argue the historical issues in Heller. My analysis of Justice Stevens' Heller dissent runs to six parts currently (more on the way). And there are numerous short articles on various subjects of interest listed in the Post Index above. Among those subjects are these titles:
The Meaning Of 'Shall Not Be Infringed'
The Meaning Of "A Well Regulated Militia"
Commas And The "Original" Version Of The Second Amendment
The Mason Triad Context Of Second Amendment Development And Purpose
     By the way, if you are unfamiliar with Mason Triads, you are most likely unfamiliar with the original American bill of rights context of ALL Second Amendment predecessors preceding Congressional proposals. These include the related provisions in eight early state declarations of rights as well as those in the proposed bills of rights and related provisions voted on in seven of the state conventions called to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
     Finally, note that my document collection, The Origin Of The Second Amendment, is a large collection, a very heavy read, and is intended as a research tool. The much easier read is my history, The Founders' View Of The Right To Bear Arms. The unusual and very extensive Table of Contents in The Founders' View Of The Right To Bear Arms is in fact an extensive outline of essential relevant historical information necessary to understand the full import and meaning of the Second Amendment.