[http://rkba.org/research/cramer/themselves.review ftp://rkbra.org/public_html/research/cramer/themselves.review] __ Date: Tue, 7 Mar 1995 09:01:41 -0500 From: Craig Peterson Subject: For the Defense of Themselves and the State Date: Friday, 03-Mar-95 06:52 PM From: LAISSEZ FAIRE BOOK NEWS \ Internet: (lfb@panix.com) To: Robert L. McCarty \ PRODIGY: (URMS16A) Subject: Laissez Faire Book News: FOR THE DEFENSE OF THEMSELVES AND THE STATE The shocking history of gun control laws $20 off the publisher's price FOR THE DEFENSE OF THEMSELVES AND THE STATE The Original Intent and Judicial Interpretation of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms by Clayton E. Cramer (reviewed by Jim Powell) It's hardly the best-kept secret that judges enforce constitutional protections only when they feel like it. Still, you will probably be taken aback to see dozens and dozens of cases where judges brazenly disregard the Second Amendment. In this book, Cramer provides the most comprehensive analysis of Second Amendment cases. He establishes beyond reasonable doubt the Founders' original intent--namely, the Constitution protects the right of individuals to keep and bear arms. Then Cramer goes on--for two- thirds of the book--to review state and federal court decisions. His largest single section exposes the racist history of gun control laws. He establishes original intent by analyzing state constitutions during the period, state requests for a Bill of Rights, actions of the First Congress on the Second Amendment and contemporary commentaries about it. In particular, he cites Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and others who supported the right of individuals to keep and bear arms. Chronicling the judicial history of the Second Amendment proved to be much tougher. Many of the most detailed state court decisions were written before the Civil War, but a lot of law libraries don't have complete records. Nor are older decisions well-indexed. Cramer started with recent decisions, then traced back the chain of precedents. He discovered how judges weasled out of upholding the Second Amendment. He provides many examples where judges simply ignored it as well as their own state constitution which protected gun rights, without offering a reason why. An Illinois Supreme Court judge dismissed the Second Amendment as "that right, whatever it may be," refusing to elaborate. Other examples show how judges supported their decisions with factual errors about the origin of the Second Amendment. Then there are examples of judges who cited misleading precedents--legal reasoning supposedly contained wasn't there, or one point cited was contradicted by other points in a decision. In documenting the racist history of gun control laws, Cramer makes clear that a major purpose is to keep people down. For example, he tells how, during the 1830s, Maryland, Virginia, Georgia and Florida enacted laws disarming free blacks. Cramer notes how the Supreme Court, in the notorious Dred Scott case (1857), denounced the idea that free blacks should be able to keep and bear arms. Cramer talks at length about the gun control laws which Southern states enacted after the Civil War to keep blacks down. For example, Louisiana: "No negro who is not in the military service shall be allowed to carry fire-arms, or any kind of weapons, within the parish, without the special written permission of his employers, approved and endorsed by the nearest and most convenient chief of patrol." And Mississippi: "No freedman, free Negro, or mulatto not in the military service of the United States government, and not licensed so to do by the board of police of his or her county, shall keep or carry firearms of any kind..." States used various tactics to restrict gun rights. Judges limited the kinds of weapons individuals could own, ruled it was illegal to carry concealed weapons--or illegal to carry weapons openly. Judges used a variety of weasel words to uphold these laws. A Tennessee judge declared such laws were legit because their aim was to "promote the public peace." He claimed that when a lot of people carried pistols, the result was "dangerous wounds, as well as frequent homicides." In 1872, a Texas judge was surprisingly frank in admitting that gun control promoters don't give a hoot for liberty: "It is useless to talk about personal liberty being infringed by laws such as that under consideration. The world has seen too much licentiousness cloaked under the name of natural or personal liberty..." The judge trashed the state's constitution which spoke clearly: "Every person shall have the right to keep and bear arms." Republicans were self-righteous about winning the Civil War and abolishing slavery, yet it was Republicans, Cramer points out, who controlled the Reconstruction era state houses when anti-black gun control laws were passed. Northern Republicans didn't do anything or even speak out about what was going on down South. Democrats who came to power continued the process of taking away rights from blacks. Cramer covers 20th century weaseling, notably the epidemic of gun control laws in the 1920s and since the 1960s. A sober reminder that defending liberty requires eternal vigilance. Book No. PO6259 (hardcover) 286p. publisher's price $49.95 LAISSEZ FAIRE PRICE ONLY $29.95 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Please send this review to anyone who you think might be interested ------------------------------------------------------------------- *For the Defense of Themselves and the State* can be ordered from Laissez Faire. Call toll-free 1-800-326-0996 or (415) 541-9780, fax (415) 541-0597 or write to: Laissez Faire Books, Dept. L50, 938 Howard St., #202, San Francisco, CA, 94103. To order via E-MAIL: Simply reply to LFB@panix.com, or write to Eric Shoemaker, our customer service manager, at 74741.2631@compuserve.com. For your security, you might want to first call and leave us your credit card information and mailing address. (If you're already a customer we probably have it.) After that you can order at anytime by e-mail using only your name and the zip code of the address we have on file. (Your zip code will verify your identity.) 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