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Barack Obama will reveal executive actions on gun control Tuesday
VIII. Conclusion
The historical record shows that, while the boundaries of the Second Amendment were the subject of vigorous discussion during the nineteenth century, the core meaning of the Amendment was well-settled: the Standard Model of the late twentieth century scholars was the Standard Model of the nineteenth century. For all practical purposes, it was the only model. Every known scholarly commentator who said anything about the Second Amendment, all six Supreme Court cases, and every judge except for one in Arkansas treated the Second Amendment as an individual right. These Standard Model sources--like their twentieth century successors--disagreed about important features of the Second Amendment, including its application to the states and the types of arms whose possession is protected. Some analysts treated the Amendment in desultory fashion, while others celebrated it. Some cases and commentators saw the right as intended solely to allow resistance to oppressive government, while others saw the right as also encompassing defense against individual criminals, and not just criminal governments. But there is agreement on one fundamental: the Second Amendment recognizes a right of individual Americans to own guns and edged weapons suitable for resisting tyranny, and protects that right from infringement by the federal government. However confusing the Second Amendment may have become to Americans in the twentieth century, the core of the Amendment's meaning was readily apparent in the nineteenth century.
The Second Amendment in the Nineteenth Century
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