The hidden history of guns and the Second Amendment / Thom Hartmann.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hartmann, Thom, 1951- author.

Series:

Hartmann, Thom, 1951- Hidden history series.

The Thom Hartmann hidden history series

Thom Hartmann hidden history series.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States. Constitution--2nd Amendment--History.

United States.

National Rifle Association of America.

Firearms--Law and legislation--United States--History.

Firearms.

Gun control--United States--History.

Gun control.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 172 pages) : 1 illustration.

Edition:

1st edition

Place of Publication:

Oakland, CA : Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., [2019]

System Details:

text file

Summary:

Thom Hartmann, the most popular progressive radio host in America and a New York Times bestselling author, looks at the real history of guns in America and what we can do to limit both their lethal impact and the power of the gun lobby. Taking his typically in-depth, historically informed view, Thom Hartmann examines the brutal role guns have played in American history, from the genocide of the Native Americans to the enforcement of slavery (Slave Patrols are in fact the Second Amendment's “well-regulated militias”) and the racist post–Civil War social order. He shows how the NRA and conservative Supreme Court justices used specious logic to invent a virtually unlimited individual right to own guns, which has enabled the ever-growing number of mass shootings in the United States. But Hartmann also identifies a handful of powerful, commonsense solutions that would break the power of the gun lobby and restore the understanding of the Second Amendment that the Framers of the Constitution intended. This is the kind of brief, brilliant analysis for which Hartmann is justly renowned.

Contents:

1. The unholy alliance of racism, genocide, and guns

2. The sanitized history of America

3. The roots of American gun culture in the "discovery" of America

4. From Columbus to Jamestown

5. From genocide to slavery

6. Early hints toward the Second Amendment

7. Gun culture's ebb and flow

8. How slavery laid the foundation of the Second Amendment

9. Gun culture enshrined : the Second Amendment

10. A constitutional Rorschach ploy : limits on slavery?

11. How Europe's history of mercenaries and military coups shaped the Second Amendment

12. How fears of abolition shaped the Second Amendment

13. The myth of the well-armed cowboy

14. The gunshot that ended reconstruction

15. The failure of reconstruction and the rise of the klan.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

Description based on print record.

ISBN:

9781523086016

1523086017

OCLC:

1273203371