In Search of The Second Amendment - Outline of The Documentary

Outline of The Documentary

How Did You Become Interested in the Second Amendment?

• Legal Scholarship and the Second Amendment

England and the Militia

• Duty to be Armed

1688

A Medieval Duty Becomes an "Antient and Indubitable Right"

• King Charles I, Oliver Cromwell, and Richard Cromwell
• King Charles II, King James II, and Gun Control
• The Glorious Revolution, King William III, Queen Mary II, and the Bill of Rights 1689

1603–1768

Rights of Englishmen, Rights of Americans

• The Colonies and the Duty to be Armed
• The Right to Arms and William Blackstone

1768–1775

The Right Is Challenged as Revolution Approaches

• Britain takes notice and the Redcoats Come to Boston
• Conflict Breaks Out

1776–1780

The First State Constitutions Give Different Models for a Right to Arms

• Virginia Declaration of Rights
• Pennsylvania Declaration of Rights
• Massachusetts Declaration of Rights

1787–1789

A Proposal for a New Constitution Leads to Calls for a National Right to Arms

• The Constitutional Convention and the Bill of Rights
• State Ratification and Declaration of Rights Proposals
• Virginia and the Demand for a Bill of Rights
• The Compromise and James Madison
• Drafting of the Right to Arms
• The Militia and Standing Armies

1789

In the First Congress, James Madison Fulfils the Great Compromise

• Madison and the Bill of Rights
• How the Second Amendment was Drafted
• The Militia, the States, and the Federal Government
• The Senate and the Second Amendment
• Tench Coxe
• St. George Tucker
• William Rawle
• Thomas Cooley
• Contemporaries and the Second Amendment

So What's the Debate? Tracing the Origin of the Belief that the 2nd Amendment Relates to a State's Right to have a National Guard

• Meaning of "The People"
• Origin of the Collective Right
• Kansas Supreme Court
• The National Guard
• United States v. Miller (1939)
• United States v. Emerson (2001)

1868

The 14th Amendment Creates a New Guarantee of the Right to Arms: The Afro–American Experience

• Slave Codes
• Dred Scott v. Sandford (1856)
• Black Codes
• Views and Response of Congress
• Civil Rights Act of 1866 and Freedmen's Bureau Act of 1866
• The Federal Bill of Rights and the States
• The Fourteenth Amendment
• In Re Slaughter–House Cases (1873)
• United States v. Cruikshank (1875)
• D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation

Civil Rights Movement

• Professor Olson's and Don Kate's Experiences as Civil Rights Workers
• Deacons for Defense
• Robert Williams and the NRA
• Lumbee Indian Tribe

American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Symposium on the Right to Arms

• Meaning of "The People" Revisited
• Dred Scott Revisited
• A New View of Standing Armies and Militias
• The Fourteenth Amendment Revisited
• Republican and Democratic Party Platforms on the Right to Arms
• Freedmen's Bureau Act of 1866 Revisited
• 18th and 19th Century Interpretation of the Second Amendment

Governments, Genocides, and Utility of the Right

• Armed Resistance and Genocide
• Protection from Different Sources of Oppression
• Frequency of Defensive Gun Uses and Crimes Committed
• Guns and Number of Lives Saved vs. Lives Taken
• Police and the Legal Duty to Protect the Public
• Warren v. District of Columbia (1981)
• View of Fellow Citizens
• Effectiveness of Defensive Gun Use
• Right of Self–defense and the Right to Arms
• Protecting the Second Amendment and Other Rights

Final Scene

• Closing Words
• Credits
• Dedications