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Yet another trip in the time machine
Here's an OCR'd version (there may be typos) of my 1974 Chicago-Kent Law Review article on the Second Amendment. So far as I can see, it's the only online text of David T. Hardy, Of Arms and the Law, 51 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 62 (1974). By modern standards, it's quite limited. But it was a start.
How it got started is rather funny, viewed from the standpoint of 2010. I wrote the article, over a period of months, on the subject of how gun control did not work -- this became the second half of the article. My editor, Mark Collins, pointed out that this is a LAW review, and I really ought to have a section on legal issues ... how about the Second Amendment? I responded that there's nothing there -- it's something that relates to national guard units and State government. In 1974 that was the "received wisdom" of the day. He said I ought to look into it, anyway. I did and started finding some incredible stuff. Much followed from that.
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I'm not able to download the paper; I see the abstract page, I click on the One-Click Download link, some intermediate screen pops up for a split second, then returns to the abstract page.
I've tried to click on the download link several times in succession to read the intermediate screen, but got scolded by a "Data Integrity System Notice" for showing "an unusual download pattern".
Same problem in IE 8 and Firefox 3.5.7 under Windows 7.
Ah, never mind. I created an account at ssrn and had the paper emailed to me.
In note 86: "...all power grows out of the barrel of a gum, "
I haven't found too many typos - that's pretty good OCR!
Nice!
Interesting ... I was an elementary school kid at this time, but my brother was attending the University of Arizona and had become a believer in the National Guard view of the 2nd amendment (UA seemed pretty liberal then).
I remember he and my dad, a WWII vet, having a heated debate about the 2nd amendment, with my Dad saying it was obviously a right of All American's and my brother saying even though it says "the right of the people" it still just refers to the army.
It sounded absurd to me then.
But in any case ... the lawyers may have accepted the militia rights view in '74, but I don't know that the general populace had. As a kid in school the few times the 2nd amendment was mentioned I got opposing views from different teachers, with the differentiating factor seeming to be age. All the people from my Dad's WWII generation knew what it meant, the "hippie" next generation did not.
Much followed from that.
I'm going to have to nominate that for the Understatement Of The Day.
Oh my, it was early...
With the same mistake as Stevens' dissent in Heller:
Miller "upheld a conviction under the 1934 act..." p.65
Thanks! It's a good read.
Favorite thought so far, from p70:
"It is much more difficult to conceptualize a collective right to keep firearms, residing at once in the entire people and yet in no individual."
Nicely put!