Guns across America: Reconciling Gun Rules and Rights

Gun ownership is as old as the nation, but, as Robert J. Spitzer demonstrates in Guns across America, so is gun regulation. In vast swathes of America, the sanctity of the Second Amendment has become a political third rail, never to be questioned, yet by employing new research on early gun laws, Spitzer reveals that firearms were in fact more strictly regulated in the country’s first three centuries than in recent years. The first gun grabbers were not 1960s Chablis-drinking liberals, but seventeenth century rum-guzzling pioneers, and their legacy continued through strict gun regulations into the 1920s and beyond. Indeed, as gun rights proponents seek to roll back gun laws and press guns into as many hands as possible, warning that gun rights are endangered, they sidestep the central question: are stricter gun laws incompatible with robust gun rights? Spitzer answers this question by examining New York State’s tough gun laws, where his political analysis is complemented by his own quest for a concealed carry handgun permit and construction of a legal AR-15 assault weapon. Not only can gun rights and rules coexist, but they have throughout American history. Guns across America reveals the long-obscured truth: gun regulations are in fact as American as apple pie.