Thanks for mentioning my new forthcoming book, The Founders' View of the Right to Bear Arms - A Definitive History of the Second Amendment. This is not actually a new edition of The Origin of the Second Amendment. ORIGIN is a huge document collection running almost 900 pages which is rather inclusive, and it is the main document source for my new book.

This new book is relatively tame by comparison. The text runs only about two hundred pages. The idea for The Founders' View of the Right to Bear Arms is to examine only the most relevant information for understanding the Second Amendment. The terms and phrases of its language have been traced to their earliest AMERICAN usage and authors. Every detail of the Second Amendment's development and intent have been examined, and many hitherto unknown facts have come to light.

With all of this information finally available, I think you can plan on the Heller case being a big 9-0 win for everyone's individual rights.

David E. Young

I have "The Origin of the Second Amendment," and it is an amazingly detailed collection of source material.

I look forward to "The Founders' View of the Right to Bear Arms - A Definitive History of the Second Amendment."

My thanks go out to Mr. Young for this new and important work.

Mr. Hardy, thank you again for another interesting blog post.

Mr. Hardy, At the risk of being a bit pushy, it sounds to me like Mr. Young needs invited to the Academics for the Second Amendment party. Your call, sir, and best wishes for success. The timing of the publication of this book could hardly be better.

Thanks for your significant contribution, David.

Excellent timing as well, given the Supreme Court proceedings.

Being an academic myself, I have contributed to the Academics for the Second Amendment fund for filing an amicus curiae on behalf of Heller.

I ran into Mr. Young at the Gun Rights Policy Conference--and he noticed something that I did not--the 1757 Pennsylvania militia statute that appears in Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania was never signed into law--in spite of appearing in a volume that by common use would be a list of laws. Good catch!