Securing Civil Rights Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Right to Bear Arms

What has it meant to take civil rights seriously-especially the right to bear arms-including in the years following the abolition of slavery? By quoting legislative debates, Congressional headings on Ku Klux Klan violence, and newspapers and law books of the time, constitutional scholar Stephen P. Halbrook shows that both supporters and opponents of the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) believed that it protected all Bill of Rights guarantees-especially the Second Amendment-from infringement by the states.

Stephen P. Halbrook has taught philosophy and law at Tuskegee Institute, Georgetown University, Howard University, and George Mason University. He has won three cases he argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, including Printz v. United States, which overturned portions of the “Brady Bill” requiring local police to enforce federal gun control regulations. He is the author of various books, including The Founders' Second Amendment. He lives in Fairfax, Virginia.