Includes bibliographical references (pages [219]-261) and index.
English tyranny versus American liberty : bearing arms in revolutionary America -- A well regulated militia : the origins of the Second Amendment -- "The true palladium of liberty" : federalists, Jeffersonians, and the Second Amendment -- Militias, mobs, and murder : testing the limits of the right to bear arms -- Rights, regulations, revolution : the antebellum debate over guns -- Individual or collective right : the Fourteenth Amendment and the origins of the modern gun debate