MADISON AWARDS GIVEN TO LAW REVIEW AND ITS AUTHORS
The Second Amendment Foundation is proud to announce that the Tennessee Law Review and many of its authors will receive Madison Awards this quarter. Madison Awards are given in the spirit of James Madison, Fourth U.S. President and author of the Second Amendment.
The Tennessee Law Review held a Second Amendment Symposium for their Spring of 1995 issue and this is a must read for gun rights activists and enthusiasts. The law review articles shoot down many of the gun grabbers’ lies one by one. For this reason, the Tennessee Law Review deserves a great deal of credit for compiling all these great authors and articles, including the Foreword.
The Foreword to the Law Review, entitled "Guns, Militias and Oklahoma City" is written by Randy E. Barnett, a Professor of Law at the Boston University School of Law. In his foreword, Mr. Barnett details how the people have "a list of grievances" with the political establishment. These grievances include how the federal government has acted far beyond its enumerated powers, violated the rights retained by the people and employed brutal measures against fellow citizens.
Mr. Barnett concludes that, "We may not rest easy until lawmakers, enforcement agencies, and judges fully respect the scheme of enumerated and limited federal powers and the rights retained by the people--including ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms.’"
One of the most important articles is entitled, "Guns and Public Health: Epidemic of Violence or Pandemic of Propaganda?" by noted criminologist and pro-gun rights attorney Don B. Kates and several prominent members of the medical community. Their decisive article details how the medical community has been publishing anti-gun editorial diatribes as fact and has shut out the truth of the pro-gun position in medical journals.
The authors expose the anti-gun bias of the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC’s) National Center for Injury Prevention and Control by quoting the Director, Dr. Mark Rosenburg, as stating his and the CDC’s desire that the public perception of guns be as "dirty, deadly--and banned." They also highlight the anti-gun bias of many other medical journal authors before directly attacking many of their gun violence "studies."
The authors destroy one by one all of the arguments made in recent medical journal editorials including: Comparisons between different countries, fatal gun accident facts, gun ownership and suicide, guns for self protection, and gun ownership as a risk factor for homicide in the home. The authors finish by criticizing the medical and health journals in general and the New England Journal of Medicine in particular for, "an editorial policy which is strongly and explicitly anti-gun, has published poorly written anti-gun articles, and has excluded articles which disagree with its editorial policy. These actions forfeit its claim to be a research journal rather than just a political advocacy publication."
Another excellent article is entitled "A Critical Guide to the Second Amendment" by Glenn Harlan Reynolds, an Associate Professor of Law with the University of Tennessee. His article details the explosion of scholarship into the meaning of the Second Amendment. Mr. Reynolds details how the academic community ignored the Second Amendment until recently and that how, "the past five years or so have undoubtedly seen more academic research concerning the Second Amendment than did the previous two hundred."
Mr. Reynolds then studies several of the earlier law review discussions, examines the different theories on the Second Amendment and highlights several of the key court cases surrounding the debate over the meaning of the Second Amendment.
Mr. Reynolds concludes that most academics believe that the Second Amendment means what it says and is an individual right, but that most of the general media focus on the "states’ rights" theory. Mr. Reynolds believes that peoples’ ignorance is due in part to, "the reluctance of legal academics to ‘go public’ with their views."
Mr. Reynolds’ wish is that, "This issue of the Tennessee Law Review will circulate widely enough to start the process of educating the public at large. . . . If it does, we will all be better off." You can make his wish come true and educate your friends with your own copy of the Tennessee Law Review. Learn more about the new wave of "shall issue" concealed carry legislation and American Jurisprudence in addition to the Second Amendment. Call 425-454-7012 today to place your order. Only $20 per copy. Be sure to have your VISA, MasterCard, Discover or American Express Card ready.