Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Uviller and Merkel on Konig and the Right to Bear Arms

H. Richard Uviller, Columbia and William G. Merkel, Washburn, have a short abstract to lead you to an article, Scottish Factors and the Origins of the Second Amendment: Some Reflections on David Thomas Konig's Rediscovery of the Caledonian Background to the American Right to Arms. The article appeared in the Law and History Review. Here's the abstract:
Engages Konig's thesis that knowledge of the Scottish militia's suspension after the Act of Union in 1707 shaped American understanding of the constitutional right to arms, and suggests that English and domestic North American perspectives remained the dominant influences on constitutional discourse in the United States when the Second Amendment was drafted and ratified.
While checking out this posting, I discovered this would have been one of the last of the late Professor Uviller's publications. A memorial note about Professor Uviller from the Columbia Law School webpage is here.