Repeal the Second Amendment
The Case for a Safer America
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1.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A radical case for the repeal of the 2nd Amendment as the only way to control gun violence in America
There's an average of one mass shooting per day in the United States. Given the ineffectiveness of the gun control lobby, it's time for a strategy with spine. In Repeal the Second Amendment, Allan J. Lichtman has written the first book that uses history, legal theory and up-to-the-minute data to make a compelling case for the amendment’s repeal in order to create a clear road to sensible gun control in the US.
Repeal the Second Amendment explores both the true history and current interpretation of the Second Amendment to expose the NRA’s blatant historical manipulations and irresponsible fake news releases. Lichtman looks at the history of firearms and gun regulations from colonial times to the present to explain how a historically forgotten sentence in the Constitution has become a flash point of recent politics that benefits only the gun industry, their lobbyists, and the politicians on their payroll. He probes court decisions and the effective lobbying and public relations strategies of the gun lobby as well as the ineffectiveness of the gun control movement for lessons in doing better.
What emerges is a clear and cogent plan--repeal and replace the Second Amendment without taking guns away from anyone who has them now--to make the US a safer place. It's time to Repeal the Second Amendment, and Allan Lichtman is the man to bring this radical plan to America.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this deeply researched polemic, American University history professor Lichtman (The Case for Impeachment) argues that the Second Amendment has been "hijacked" by the National Rifle Association and "can and must" be repealed in order to solve America's gun violence problem. Lichtman chronicles the gun lobby's decades-long campaign, culminating in the Supreme Court's 2008 D.C. v. Heller decision, to redefine the amendment's "collective" right to bear arms as an "individual" and "virtually unlimited" right, and debunks claims that private gun ownership leads to less crime, that firearms are effective for self-defense, and that gun control measures don't reduce gun violence. A repeal amendment would need to be proposed by two-thirds majorities in both houses of Congress and ratified by three-quarters of the states a "difficult" task, Lichtman writes, but one that has been achieved before, with the end of Prohibition in 1933. The campaign to repeal the 18th Amendment, according to Lichtman, created a road map gun control advocates can follow by organizing "single-issue group" dedicated to repeal and recruiting former gun rights advocates to join the cause, among other tactics. Lichtman's damning portrait of the NRA persuades, but his "path to repeal" feels vague and overly optimistic. However, this call to action will resonate with gun control advocates.
