The Resurgent Second Amendment

Abstract

This review essay explores the extent to which Adam Winkler and Robert H. Churchill address the resurgence of the Second Amendment debate in their respective books, Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America, and To Shake Their Guns in the Tyrant's Face: Libertarian Political Violence and the Origins of the Militia Movement in light of the Supreme Court's decision in District of Columbia v. Heller. Cottrol approves of Winkler's Gunfight as an excellent review of the background and view of the oral argument presented to the Supreme Court in Heller, but critiques it as falling short of an in-depth explanation of the intellectual history of the Second Amendment. Cottrol includes a favorable critique of Churchill's To Shake their Guns as a more thorough look at the intellectual history and development of the militia movement in the 1990s.