Cress And Robert E. Shalhope And The Second Amendment Analysis

Lawrence Delbert Cress and Robert E. Shalhope both write extensively researched articles about the history of the Second Amendment, but they come to very contradictory conclusions. There are a number of questions that both Cress and Shalhope were attempting to answer. What is the historical background for how the writers of the Second Amendment would have looked at the basis for the Second Amendment? What sort of cultural influences at the time of the writing helped to shape the views of writers? And most importantly, what right or rights were the framers of the Second Amendment actually intending to protect? Cress and Shalhope each look at multiple primary and secondary sources to back up their thesis, sometimes even the same sources; however, …show more content…
The evidence he uses can be separated into two sections: The historical libertarian ideas and the actual framing of the Bill of Rights. The historical libertarian ideas encompass the ideas of the armed civilian on the character of the nation, the fear of tyrannical governments and a comparison of American republican virtue with decadence and disarmament under European monarchies. Discussion of the framing of the Bill of Rights includes how large numbers of state amendments were melded into a few final amendments and how concerns for the potential to disarm individuals shaped the framers …show more content…
There are some limitations put on it in certain writings. For instance, Marchmont Nedham suggests that arms should be born only by responsible citizens and James Harrington adds the need to be a landowner. Shalhope indicates that these exceptions are just that, specific exception of individuals who could be denied arms, rather than saying that only specific people should be allowed arms. In summary, early libertarian thought shapes American republican thought through a distrust of standing armies which can be wielded by tyrannical governments; the concept of the virtuous, independent, and armed individual; and the need for these individuals to come together in state militias to protect from threats both within and from without the state. The right to bear arms is seen as individual, with the potential for it to be withheld from specific individuals for the good of the public, but that only a tyrannical government would seek to withhold the right to bear arms from all