1. Feed Your Head: Books ``THE THINGS I WANT TO KNOW ARE IN BOOKS; MY BEST FRIEND IS THE MAN WHO'LL GET ME A BOOK I AIN'T READ.'' Abraham Lincoln Defenders of the right to bear arms have facts and logic on their side, but the gun prohibitionists have the media on their side. Most people get their information only from the media; hence, most people are badly misinformed about the facts of the gun issue. One of the responsibilities of being a gun owner is rationally explaining the facts about gun ownership to your friends and acquaintances. Below is a list of some of the best books and other materials written about the right to bear arms, so you can arm yourself with knowledge. If you're fairly new to the gun issue, the volume of materials available may seem daunting. Don't worry. There are good books for every level of knowledge about the right to bear arms. Starters Research Reports published by the Second Amendment Foundation are a series of short and informative pamphlets about various aspects of the right to keep and bear arms. The Reports are issued as the result of SAF's continuous research into the social, political, and legal aspects of firearm rights. Current titles include: Supreme Court Decisions Regarding The Second Amendment; Saving Seven Days Time While Fighting Crime: Instant Background Checks as an Alternative to the Brady Bill; The Role of Firearms In Self Defense; Bans on Semi-Automatics: Unconstitutional Hysteria; Handgun Control: Its Threat to Rifle & Shotgun Ownership; Handgun Purchase Waiting Periods: Do they Reduce Crime? Each of these reports are fact-filled sources for knowledge about gun use and ownership in America. The reports are available at no charge from the Second Amendment Foundation, 12500 NE 10th Place, Bellevue, WA 98005 1-206-454-7012. The National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative Action (NRA/ILA) publishes its own set of short brochures about gun control issues. Titles include: Ten Myths About Gun Control, Gun Law Failures, A Push for Gun Control, Criminals Don't Wait--Why Should You?, Semi-Automatic Firearms: A Citizen's Choice, The Armed Citizen, Don't Buy HCI Lies, 1993 NRA Firearms Fact Card, It Can Happen to You, Interstate Transportation, and 1993 Compendium of State Laws. NRA also publishes short brochures about the gun laws of each state, as well as separate brochures for Washington, DC and New York City (two jurisdictions whose low crime rates prove how effective gun control really is.) The booklets can be obtained from Information and Member Services, NRA/ILA. For the NRA's address and telephone, see chapter 25. Books: Two Basics The material in the SAF Research Reports and in the NRA/ILA brochures is a good starting point for educating yourself on the gun issue. If you don't have much time for reading, the Reports and brochures provide you with well-researched quick summaries of issues. But as a Second Amendment activist, you'll likely be interested in learning more and more about the issue, for your own interest, as well as to provide support for your activist work. An excellent first book on the gun issue The Rights of Gun Owners by Alan Gottlieb. This compilation of all federal and state laws relating to guns and ammunition includes everything from constitutional guarantees to licenses, regulations, concealed weapons, waiting periods, ammunition purchases, postal regulations, and crossing state borders. This book details what your rights are, how those rights are being destroyed, and how to protect yourself from a government grown too powerful. For those concerned about the preservation and extension of freedom of gun ownership, this book is a very good primer. $9.95 from Merril Press, P.O. Box 1682, Bellevue, WA 98009. To order by phone call 1-206-454-7009. Another fine first book (and a good second book as well) is the Gun Rights Fact Book, also by Alan Gottlieb. The book is easy to read, and organized by topic (i.e., ``Media Bias'', ``Plastic Guns''). The book is an excellent source for key facts about just about every gun control issue. The book is not footnoted, so it's not particularly suited as a starting point for research on gun control. If you're already a gun rights activist, you may already know much of the information presented in the Gun Rights Fact Book. If so, the book is a good tool for you to use by giving it to your less-informed pro-gun friends. $3.95 from the Merril Press, P.O. Box 1682, Bellevue, WA 98009, same phone number as above. Just the Facts, Ma'am Once you're ready to plunge in a little deeper, there are several sources that provide good overall coverage of the gun control issue in a readable format. These sources, while written in an accessible style, are aimed at a somewhat more sophisticated audience than the two Alan Gottlieb books we just described. These sources also contain extensive footnotes or endnotes which, while not providing an obstacle to persons who just want to read the main text, allow persons who want to press deeper to find out where to go. Guns, Murders, and the Constitution: A Realistic Assessment of Gun Control is a gem by Don B. Kates, Jr. For the last two decades, Kates has been the star intellectual of the pro-gun movement. Kates' prodigious writing has been published in popular magazines like Harpers and scholarly journals like the Michigan Law Review that had never before printed anything pro-gun. Virtually every academic who has defended the right to bear arms has consulted with Kates. A prolific pro-Second Amendment writer, Kates has opened up more minds on the subject of gun control than anyone in the history of the United States. This 64 page velo-bound monograph (short study) is an excellent summary Kates' work, particularly regarding the evidence about gun control and self-defense. Kates demolishes the myth that domestic homicides are perpetrated by nice people who just happened to have a gun around when their wife burned the dinner, dissects the pompous assertions of white male academics that women are better off submitting to rape than resisting with a gun, and puts to rest the anti-gun lobby's phony claims about childhood gun accidents. Eight dollars from the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, 177 Post St., San Francisco, CA 94108. 1-415-989-0833. Trust the People: The Case Against Gun Control, by David B. Kopel. Here's a review from gun activist Neal Knox's computer bulletin board: ``A relatively short (32 typewritten pages) well documented (plus 20 pages of references) overview of the basic issues. One of the best things you can use to convince an individual with a potentially open mind. It's fact filled, well written, forcefully argued, and makes sure to hit all the right liberal hot buttons (civil rights, racial and sexual discrimination, etc.). For the price, you have no excuse for not getting it.'' $4 from the Cato Institute, 1000 Mass. Ave. NW, Washington DC 20001-5403. (202) 842-0200. Request ``Policy Analysis #109, Trust the People.'' The Gun Control Debate: You Decide, by Lee Nisbet provides an excellent pro-and-con overview of the gun control topic. Nisbet went to pro-rights and pro-control organizations, and asked them to suggest the best essays which had been written in favor of their respective positions. The 24 essays collected in Nisbet's book offer a ``greatest hits'' collection of pro-rights scholarship, and also provide an up-close look at the best material the pro-control side has to offer. The contrast in the quality of scholarship between the pro-rights side and the pro-control side is sometimes startling. Studying the pro-control essays gives you a heads-up on the arguments you will most likely encounter from pro-control folks. Available from Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY, 800-767-1241 (24 hours), or from Merril Press (address and phone above). Advanced Stuff Without any doubt, one book stands out at the single best source of information about guns and gun control in America: Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America, by Gary Kleck. Simply put, Point Blank is the best overview of gun control that can be found. Summarizing the findings of other scholars, and presenting original research, Kleck demonstrates the folly of harsh gun controls. Is the average gun owner so stupid and clumsy that he risks killing himself accidentally with the gun he brought for protection? Kleck analyzes gun accidents in detail, and shows that most accident perpetrators are outrageously reckless and irresponsible, and have little in common with the average gun owner. Kleck also observes that most ``accidents'' said to occur while cleaning a gun are really suicides. Is the gun in the home or business a menace to society? Just the opposite. Through thoroughly documented numerical data, Kleck shows that Americans use handguns at least 645,000 times a year for self-defense (usually without needing to fire a shot). The high rate of American gun ownership explains why burglary of occupied residences is so low in comparison to the rates in other countries. Overall, an American criminal's chances of getting shot by his victim are at least as great as his chances of going to jail. Have gun registration, gun prohibition, or any of the rest of the gun control litany had any statistically perceptible effect in reducing crime? The answer is ``no,'' suggests Kleck, and he does a particularly good job in skewering the pseudo-science that the anti-gun lobbies claim supports their cause. While intended to be accessible to a general readership, Point Blank is written for a rigorous academic audience. Accordingly, some paragraphs of the book delve into technical discussion of quantitative sociology that will be over the head of anyone without at least two semesters of a college statistics classes and a fond memory of slide rules. The book is well-organized, with a strong table of contents, index, subheadings, and other reader aids. Thus, instead of reading the book straight through, you can use it as a guide to all the research regarding gun control in modern America. So when you want to write a letter to the editor and supply the real facts about the (extremely low) rate of childhood gun accidents, Point Blank will have all the information available right there. And every chapter is supplemented by at least a half-dozen tables providing a wealth of statistics about guns and their use. In short, Point Blank is a book that deserves to be read by anyone with a serious interest in the gun control debate. Scrupulously honest, Kleck comes to the politically incorrect conclusion that guns save lives, and gun control does not. As a result, Kleck has been vilified by anti-gun forces such as The New Republic magazine, in thoughtless editorials that attack Kleck by misstating what he says. While coming under fire from the anti-gun forces, Point Blank is not entirely supportive of the pro-gun side. In the rare cases where the evidence shows that a particular gun control has worked, Kleck says so. And while Kleck demonstrates the useless or dangerous nature of most of the gun control lobby's agenda, Kleck does propose his own set of controls. Kleck favors a national ``instant check'' on all gun sales. He would require that even transfers between private individuals be routed through licensed gun dealers, so that the instant check could be applied to those transactions. About 84% of gun sales could be approved immediately, as with a credit card check. But for the other sales, Kleck admits, a substantial number of legitimate buyers would be disapproved initially, and then required to go through a weeks-long process to clear their names, thanks to the poor quality of criminal justice records in many states. (For example, if you have the same name as someone who was arrested for a non-violent felony, and was later found not guilty, you could easily be turned down by the ``instant check.'') Moreover, background checks of any kind, including the ``instant check'' do sometimes find ineligible buyers, but almost never catch a criminal trying to acquire a crime gun. The typical ``criminal'' caught by a background check is more like the man who got into a fist fight in a bar ten years ago, and never realized that his third-degree assault conviction disqualified him from owning a gun. And besides, the very rare criminal who can't get a black market gun, and who wants to buy a crime gun from a gun store, can simply ask a friend with a clean record to make the purchase for him. The negligible benefits of the instant check are outweighed by their substantial costs, which Kleck fails to fully consider. First of all, a large new government bureaucracy would be required to administer the check. Kleck suggests paying for the bureaucracy through a $10/gun purchase. While ten dollars may not seem like much to a hunter buying a $500 rifle, it's quite a bit to a young woman who can barely afford $40 for a self-defense handgun. Moreover, once the tax was established, the anti-gun lobbies would immediately begin pressing to raise it as high as possible. Like almost every scholar who has studied the issue, Kleck agrees that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms. Yet the Kleck instant check amounts to people being restrained from exercising their Constitutional rights until the government gives them permission. Kleck, who is a strong civil libertarian, ought to be more sensitive to the Constitutional policy against prior restraints. And lastly, it's very difficult to design an instant check system that can't be perverted into a registry of gun owners. But whatever you think of Kleck's conclusions, his book on the whole is outstanding. It is precisely the kind of carefully argued, meticulously researched scholarship that the gun debate needs. If you ever speak out regarding the right to bear arms, if you ever write letters to the editor, if you ever write your state legislators, you will find Point Blank a wonderful resource. Point Blank is published by Aldine de Gruyter (Hawthorne, New York), and is available in high-quality bookstores. Any bookstore can special order it for you. Unfortunately, Point Blank, is published only in hard cover, and at 512 pages, the book retails for a very hefty $59.95. Despite the high price, Point Blank is worth every penny. If you can't afford it, ask your local library to buy it. Most libraries that get two or three requests for a book within a few weeks will strongly consider a purchase. Under the Gun: Weapons Crime & Violence, by James Wright, Peter Rossi, and Kathleen Daly. The authors are some of the best sociologists in the United States. They favored gun control, and set out to collect all the evidence for it in one place. This book is the result. After taking a hard look at the data, the authors changed their minds, and announced that there is no proof that gun control does any good. The book's only serious limitation is that it was written in the early 1980s, and therefore does not cover some of the more recent research, and does not discuss some of the issues that have arisen in recent years, such as so-called ``assault weapons.'' $44.95 cloth, $24.95 paperback from Aldine de Gruyter, 200 Saw Mill River Rd., Hawthorne, NY 10532. 1-914-747-0110. Armed and Dangerous, by Jim Wright and Peter Rossi reports the results of a 1981 National Institute of Justice study of felony prisoners in ten state prison systems. The study provides overwhelming evidence of how guns in the right hands enhance public safety: 56% percent of the prisoners said that a criminal would not attack a potential victim who was known to be armed. Thirty-nine percent of the felons had personally decided not to commit a crime because they thought the victim might have a gun, and 8% said the experience had occurred ``many times.'' Criminals in states with higher civilian gun ownership rates worried the most about armed victims. At the same time, the criminals reported that gun control laws had little or no effect on their ability to obtain crime guns. Like Under the Gun, the book is published by Aldine de Gruyter, 200 Saw Mill River Rd., Hawthorne, NY 10532. 1-914-747-0110. Prices are $39.95 cloth, and $19.95 paperback. The Journal on Firearms and Public Policy. Published by the Center for the Study of Firearms & Public Policy, the Journal provides a forum for publication of scholarly articles on firearms and their relation to social, legal, and political issues. It accepts papers on a broad range of scholarly topics related to gun ownership, use, carrying, law and policy issues. The Journal also reprints important past articles in order to provide a unified reference source for researching firearms issues. The primary purposes of the Journal are to encourage serious researchers to explore issues related to firearms and their effect on society; to provide a convenient place for the publication of research results; and to provide an information source which can be used by policy makers to guide their decisions. The Second Amendment Foundation sponsors the Journal to encourage objective research. It is the intention of the editors to reprint articles of scholarly quality regardless of their conclusions for or against the Foundation's positions on controversial issues. Volumes 1 and 2 are nearly out of print and available in limited quantities only. Volumes 3 and 4 will likely remain available for the next few years. Volume 3 includes a reprint of University of Texas Law Professor Sanford Levinson's ground-breaking essay on the Second Amendment; an article on law-enforcement lobbying and the Second Amendment, by NRA researcher Paul Blackman; a short article on how gun control endangers all Constitutional rights, by attorney David I. Caplan; and an original article ``Gun-making as a Cottage Industry,'' which discusses the types of handguns that would be produced by home workshops in the event of gun prohibition. Volume 4 includes an article analyzing New York City's law requiring mandatory jail terms for illegal gun possession; several articles about the original meaning of the Second Amendment; and an article about the unintended consequences of gun control. Issues available, for ten dollars apiece, from the Second Amendment Foundation, 12500 NE 10th Place, Bellevue, WA 98005 1-206-454-7012. Law Abiding Criminals by John Kaplan, Don Kates, and Raymond Kessler. The purpose of this monograph, which contains three articles by noted sociologists and criminologists, is to illustrate the lesson learned time and again that government is not an effective instrument for social engineering. That is, history has proven that when government outlaws something desired by a substantial segment of a population, the populace simply ignores the government edict or devises methods to circumvent the law. Ultimately, once the law is recognized as a failure, it is abandoned, but in the meantime what has been accomplished is to make otherwise law-abiding Americans members of the criminal class. Law-Abiding Criminals was produced to present the views of those who question the efficacy of an all-encompassing handgun ban. Written by individuals with first-hand experience in the criminal-defense field, the authors share a common opinion that a total handgun ban would experience enforcement difficulties similar to those encountered during alcohol prohibition and drug interdiction campaigns. Available from the Second Amendment Foundation, 1250 NE 10th Place, Bellevue, WA 98005. 1-206-454-7012. History of the Right to Bear Arms That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right, by Stephen P. Halbrook: This is by far the best historical book of the legal development of the Second Amendment in the United States. The research is thorough, and the reasoning insightful. The book has been accorded the high honor of being cited as an authoritative source in an article in the Yale Law Journal--Akhil Reed Amar's ``The Bill of Rights as a Constitution,'' (vol. 100). Liberty Tree Press, 1-800-345-2888; $12.95. Halbrook's other book, A Right to Bear Arms: State and Federal Bills of Rights and Constitutional Guarantees is less essential. The book is mostly a history of state arms right guarantees in the during the American Revolution and Early Republic. For a historian, the book is an indispensable reference. For a general reader, it may be too densely written. The very steep price slapped on the book by publisher Greenwood Press is an indication that the market is library sales more than the average gun owner. Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Report of the US Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution. In 1982, the US Senate decided to take a look at the original intent of the authors of the Second Amendment. The Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution unanimously concluded that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms. Although the Government Printing Office version of the book has gone out of print, the book has been reprinted by the Second Amendment Foundation. 1-206-454-7012. The book is also reprinted volume 1 of Gun Control and the Constitution (discussed below). The Origin of the Second Amendment, by David Young. The book reprints 480 documents from the period surrounding the introduction and ratification of the Second Amendment. Included are newspaper articles, pamphlets, letters to the editor, debates from the federal Constitutional convention, debates from the state ratifying conventions, and Congressional debates. Author David Young has brought together, for the first time, all of the original source material regarding what the Second Amendment meant to the nation that enacted it. The book opens in the summer of 1787 with the federal Constitutional Convention debating Congressional powers regarding the militia. The final major document of the book is a January 29, 1791 article in the Independent Gazetteer (a Philadelphia newspaper), in which the author, who identifies himself only as ``A Farmer'' warns: ``Under every government the dernier [last] resort of the people, is an appeal to the sword; whether to defend themselves against the open attacks of a foreign enemy, or to check the insidious encroachments of domestic foes.'' In between the first and last documents is a treasure-trove of American history. Leafing through these pages, you encounter the great men who founded our Republic, and whose words speak to us today. Wrote Tench Coxe, James Madison's friend, in the Feb. 20, 1778 Freeman's Journal: ``Who are the militia? are they not our selves...Their swords, and ever other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American.'' (emphasis in original.) Hear Patrick Henry thundering from the June 5, 1788 Virginia ratifying convention: ``Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force you are inevitably ruined.'' The men who speak to us through The Origin of the Second Amendment harbor no fear that government would interfere with ``sporting'' guns or hunting. They express the greatest apprehension of select, uniformed military forces, such as the standing army (and such as the modern National Guard). As The Origin of the Second Amendment makes unmistakably clear, the great object of the Second Amendment was to preserve liberty by ensuring that the American people would have in their individual hands the weapons with which to resist federal tyranny. The ``well-regulated militia'' included almost every able-bodied free male. Besides collecting an excellent selection of documents, the author also provides a good introductory essay summarizing the historical context of the debate over ratification of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as well as an appendix giving the full text of all state Bill of Rights from 1787-89, and a very detailed index. This book was awarded the ``Book of the Year'' prize by Gun World magazine in 1992. The Origin of the Second Amendment is available by mail from Golden Oak Books, 605 Michigan Street, Ontonagon, Michigan 49953, or can be special-ordered by your local bookstore (supply them with the Michigan address, since the publisher is not well-known). The book goes for $50 plus $5 shipping and handling (plus 4% sales tax for Michigan residents). Origins and Developments of the Second Amendment, by David Hardy. In 95 very readable pages, Hardy traces the right to bear arms from its origins in early English history up through the creation of the American Second Amendment. The book is broken down into subtopics, about one per page. Each subtopic contains a two or three paragraph quote from an original source (such as an English King's law), coupled with analysis from Hardy. The result? A straightforward history of the history of our right to bear arms, that serves as an excellent introduction to the topic. At the same time, the book's long quotations from original sources are very useful for more advanced students of the right to bear arms. Hardy's fine book can be special ordered from your local bookstore. Or you can order the book directly from the publisher, Blacksmith Corp., at 1-800-531-2665. Specialized Topics The Gun Culture and Its Enemies, edited by William R. Tonso, takes a detailed look at some neglected angles of the gun control debate. The book includes chapters by sociologist William Tonso and by Kopel demonstrating the existence of media bias in coverage of gun control. In another chapter, John Salter, a veteran of the civil rights movement, details how the use of armed force by civil rights workers in the 1960s was crucial to the movement's success--because it deterred murders by the Ku Klux Klan. Do sexually inadequate people buy guns to serve as substitute phallic symbols? Don Kates and Nicole Varzos demolish the notion in their chapter. The Gun Culture and Its Enemies can be ordered for $9.95 in paperback from Merril Press, P.O. Box 1682, Bellevue, Washington, 98009. 1-206-454-7009. The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy: Should America Adopt the Gun Controls of Other Democracies?, by David B. Kopel. Everyone has heard the argument: Other countries have gun control; other countries have less gun crime, so if we had strict gun control, we'd have less gun crime. In a comprehensive analysis, The Samurai debunks the myth that gun control is responsible for the low crime rates in Japan, Britain, Canada, and other democracies. The book also offers a provocative survey of the history of firearms, violence, and crime in America. Best-selling novelist Tom Clancy praised the book as ``A superb piece of scholarship, admirable for its integrity and painstaking research. Kopel provides the fresh air of reason in a national debate too often marked by acrimony and prejudice.'' The book was awarded the Comparative Criminology Book Award by the American Society of Criminology's Division of Comparative and International Criminology. $28.95 plus shipping, available from the Second Amendment Foundation, 1250 NE 10th Place, Bellevue, WA 98005. 1-206-454-7012. Also available from the publisher, Prometheus Books, at 1-800-767-1241 (24 hours). Why Gun Waiting Periods Threaten Public Safety, by David B. Kopel. The most detailed analysis available of the arguments for and against waiting periods. 62 pages, stapled. $8 a copy. Independence Institute, 14142 Denver West Parkway #101; Golden, CO 80401. (303) 279-6536. The ``Assault Weapon'' Panic: Political Correctness Takes Aim at the Constitution, by Eric Morgan and David B. Kopel (revised edition, April 1993). A 94 page Issue Paper debunking the claims of persons who want to prohibit semiautomatics. $12 a copy. Independence Institute, 14142 Denver West Parkway #101; Golden, CO 80401. (303) 279-6536. Armed and Female. Author Paxton Quigley, a former anti-gun activist, explains why she now supports a woman's right to keep and bear arms. The book contains lots of practical advice for a woman considering buying a gun. Available from the Second Amendment Foundation, 1250 NE 10th Place, Bellevue, WA 98005. 1-206-454-7012. Gun Control: The Continuing Debate by Dr. Donald Hook. Dr. Hook, a former agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is a professor at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. He was educated at five US universities and OSI/FBI School in Washington DC and the Criminological Institute at the University of Vienna. He received a PhD from Brown University. Gun Control: The Continuing Debate was written to inform the public at large, and it ought to have a place in public and academic libraries. It is an informative look at the history, sociology and governmental aspects of the gun control debate written to the high school and college level. Dr. Hook covers the field of the gun control landscape in chapters dealing with the history of the right to keep and bear arms and in chapters arguing for and against the status quo. Probably the most controversial statements made in the book occur in the final chapter where Dr. Hook outlines some compromise positions he sees as valuable. Available from Merril Press, P.O. Box 1682, Bellevue, WA 98009, or 1-206-454-7008. Gun Control and the Constitution. This three-volume set, edited by Rutgers University Law Professor Robert J. Cottrol is the best compilation of all viewpoints of the legal debate regarding the right to keep and bear arms. The hardcover books, brought out by Garland Publishing (New York) reprint the best judicial and scholarly analysis of the Second Amendment. For any researcher concerned with in-depth legal analysis, the books very useful. Unfortunately, the books are also very expensive. And if you know how to use a law library, you find most of the books' material in their original sources, and read them in the library for free. On the other hand, if you can afford them, each volume will add greatly to your understanding of the legal background to the gun control debate. Volume 1, Sources and Explorations of the Second Amendment ($57.00) includes a good introductory essay by Cottrol, reprints of the US Supreme Court's three major cases dealing with the Second Amendment, six state court cases, and (perhaps best of all) a full reprint of the US Senate's 130 page investigation of the historical record about the Second Amendment., The Right to Keep and Bear Arms (discussed above). Significantly, the reprint includes several well-written legal reports which were attached to the Senate report in the appendix. In contrast, the Second Amendment Foundation reprint of The Right to Keep includes only the Senate report itself. Garland Publishing, Inc., 717 Fifth Ave., Suite 2500, NY, NY 10022. (212) 751-7447. fax (212) 308-9399. Volume 2, Advocates and Scholars: The Modern Debate on Gun Control ($62.00) reprints 15 major law journal articles analyzing the Second Amendment. The selections are scrupulously balanced between pro-rights and anti-rights articles. The effect, however, is to strengthen the pro-rights position, since the pro-rights articles are so much better researched and persuasive. Volume 3, Special Topics on Gun Control ($54.00) reprints 9 more law journal articles, involving specialized topics in the Second Amendment debate. Most of the articles deal with the English origins of the right to keep and bear arms, or with the connection between gun-owning and responsible citizenship, as seen by the generation that created the Second Amendment. The most interesting article, however, is final one, written by Robert Cottrol and Raymond T. Diamond, which explores the history of gun control in the United States as a method of controlling Afro-Americans. And, if the three volume set's $173.00 price tag makes your wallet tremble with fear, there are plans to bring out a one-volume paperback (priced around $20.00) containing the best material from the three volumes. Call the publisher, at the number listed above, for availability. Gun Control: Gateway to Tyranny. The militant pro-rights organization Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership has published this interesting analysis of German gun control laws in the Nazi and pre-Nazi eras. The authors document how laws which might appear reasonable on paper were used to disarm Jews and other groups as a first step towards genocide. $19.95 plus $2.90 shipping from JPFO, Inc., 2872 S. Wentworth Ave., Milwaukee, WI 53207. 1-414-769-0760. Further reading All of the above books have bibliographies which will lead you to excellent articles in scholarly journals and in magazines such as the American Rifleman. The material we've listed here is just a starting point. There are many other worthwhile books on the subject.