Posted for Educational use only. The printed edition remains canonical. For citational use please visit the local law library or obtain a back issue. By Stephen P. Halbrook. Although it is one of the constitutional provisions that citizens and politicians argue about most, the second amendment heretofore has never been the subject of a scholarly treatise that is both comprehensive and in-depth and that is, in addition, based primarily on original sources.
Every Man Be Armed is the first such book.
Halbrook holds a law degree and a' doctorate in social philosophy and does an excellent job of integrating the two disciplines as he traces the amendment from its roots in ancient Greece and Rome through modem court decisions. Because of the controversial nature of gun control, thoughts on the second amendment have become polarized into two positions. That Every Man Be Armed clearly supports an individual rights approach. Approximately one-fourth of the book is devoted to examining the political and legal thought that influenced the Founding Fathers. The analysis begins with Plato and Aristotle, moves to Machiavelli and then to later theorists such as Hobbes, Locke and Sidney.