In Search of the Second Amendment is an important documentary on DVD produced by attorney and author David T. Hardy. The production begins with dueling precedents, decisions from the 6th and 9th Circuit Courts declaring the Second Amendment a right held by the states, vs. the 5th Circuit conclusion in the Emerson case that it recognizes and protects an individual right.

This is where we are now in terms of legal recognition, with no resolution by the Supreme Court. But how did we get to this point?

Relying on interviews with such notables as Stephen Halbrook, Don Kates, Joyce Lee Malcolm and a host of others, Hardy takes us on an historic journey, beginning with a medieval militia duty and its evolution into the Rights of Englishmen, and then to laws in the American colonies requiring the keeping and bearing of arms.

Hardy draws on Blackstone’s Commentaries, which articulated the right as a last resort for resisting tyranny, and shows how various state constitutions were developed, culminating in the Second Amendment. The founding intent and early legal understanding of the individual rights model is cemented with relevant passages from St. George Tucker, William Rawle and Thomas Cooley.

Hardy presents this all in a way we can follow, often with dry and understated wit. And as formidable as their credentials are, the academics he interviews come across as earnest and real people, not ivory tower bores. Joseph Olson of Hamline University, presuming he probably broke the law when he carried a gun during his civil rights activism days, is one example of such a human dimension.

Hardy tells us of the Dred Scott decision and its admission that if blacks had the rights of free men, they’d have the right to bear arms. Much of the documentary focuses on the evolution of the civil rights era, from the slave codes to the Jim Crow era, and the depredations of the Klan. Roy Innis from the Congress of Racial Equality and Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America, tell about the Deacons of Self Defense, how a church raised money to buy rifles, and about getting an NRA charter to form an all black chapter in the South.

The historical evidence is conclusive. The Second Amendment was intended to express an individual right, and any alternate “collective rights” theories are modern fictions developed by those with an agenda to control guns. In the words of Sanford Levinson from the University of Texas, this “view was virtually unknown before the 1960s.”
David Hardy has given us an important tool to use in educating ourselves and others.

In Search of the Second Amendment is available for $24.95, plus $2 S&H (Arizona residents add $1.52 sales tax) from: Second Amendment Films, 8987 E. Tanque Verde, PMB 265, Tucson, AZ 85749, www.secondamendmentdocumentary.com.

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