Once More unto the Breach, Dear Friends

Abstract

In the 1990s the issue of gun control raised political passions to a fevered pitch. It is perhaps to be expected that some of that passion has spilled over into the scholarly debate about the meaning of the Second Amendment. I see that passion in the visceral responses my work has generated, in Saul Cornell's reflexive impulse to dismiss my work with crude labels, and in David Konig's unwillingness to engage fully the nuances of my thesis, which is neither strong nor weak, but certainly complex. In this context I appreciate William Merkel's courteous engagement of the full complexity of my argument.