NCJ Number
127651
Date Published
1990
Length
22 pages
Annotation
The second amendment is not at the forefront of constitutional discussion, at least as registered in what the academy regards as the venues for such discussion -- law reviews, casebooks, and other scholarly legal publications.
Abstract
For too long, most members of the legal academy have treated the second amendment as the equivalent of an embarrassing relative, whose mention brings a quick change of subject to other, more respectable family members. That will no longer do. It is time for the second amendment to enter full scale into the consciousness of the legal academy. There are six rhetorical structures within which "law-talk" as a recognizable form of conversation is carried on. The six are as follows: textual argument, historical argument, structural argument, doctrinal argument, prudential argument, and ethical argument. In text, history, structure, and caselaw doctrine, the arguments on behalf of a "strong" second amendment are perhaps stronger than originally realized. The fifth, prudentialism, is clearly of great importance in any debates about gun control and focuses on the extensive social costs of widespread distribution of firearms. 102 notes