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Gun Laws in Early America: The Regulation of Firearms Ownership, 1607–1794

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 October 2011

Michael A. Bellesiles
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Extract

King James I stated the official position of the English governing elite on gun ownership succinctly. When it was suggested that more of England's subjects should enjoy the right to hunt and own firearms, James responded that “it is not fit that clowns should have these sports.”

Discussion of early American gun laws begins with consideration of the English legal heritage. In the last few years, adherents of the self-described “standard model” of the meaning of the Second Amendment have constructed a paradigm of an uninterrupted tradition of legally sanctioned individual gun ownership in America. Such a construction starts with the idea that the British brought an acceptance of the universal ownership of firearms with them to the Americas. That cultural norm gave form to the meaning of the Second Amendment, which institutionalized an individual right to bear arms for purposes of personal and communal defense and as a security against a tyrannical government. This history matters greatly to these scholars in establishing an original intent in the Second Amendment to protect an individual's right to own guns.

Type
Notes and Commentary
Information
Law and History Review , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , Fall 1998 , pp. 567 - 589
Copyright
Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 1998

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References

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