The Meaning of "Bear Arms" and Pistols As Protected Arms

The gun control crowd has insisted for several years that "bear arms" in the Second Amendment, and most of the state constitutional guarantees, refers to the military use of weapons, and not to the private use of arms for self-defense. Professor Joe Olson and I have put together a law review article on the subject demonstrating that this is simply not the case. The documents of the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries demonstrate that not only did many English speakers use "bear arms" to refer to civilian uses of arms, but that English statutes did so. Even more importantly, statesmen who played significant roles in the creation of our government used "bear arms" to refer to civilian carrying of weapons. You can download the paper at Social Sciences Research Network. The abstract is here; you can download it here.

Another paper by Joe Olson and I concerns whether pistols are properly understood as protected arms under the Second Amendment. The abstract is here; you can download it here.