gun control 
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SOURCE: Heather Cox Richardson
3/23/2021
Letters From an American: March 23, 2021
by Heather Cox Richardson
Beginning in the 1970s, the National Rifle Assocaition evolved into a political lobbying organization increasingly enmeshed with the conservative movement. Two recent mass shootings are a tribute to the organization's success. Congratulations.
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SOURCE: Duke Center for Firearms Law
10/7/2020
Why Heller is Such Bad History
by Noah Shusterman
Antonin Scalia's opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller ignored the actual history of the early American militia in order to invent an individual right to gun ownership.
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10/18/2019
Understanding America's History Of Gun Control
by Samantha Benthien
As gun violence rates continue to increase, looking to America's history of gun control can provide insight into this polarized issue.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
9/12/19
When Texas was the national leader in gun control
by Brennan Gardner Rivas
How the land of gunslinger mythology regulated weapons to reduce violence
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SOURCE: NY Times
9/7/19
How Congress Passed an Assault Weapons Ban in 1994
With Congress prepared to again clash over gun safety, in the aftermath of a murderous August, the circuitous route to passage taken by the assault weapons ban 25 years ago illustrates just how perfectly the legislative stars must align for contentious gun measures to become law.
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SOURCE: News @ Wesleyan
8/23/19
‘A Right to Bear Arms?’ Edited by Jennifer Tucker, Barton C. Hacker, and Margaret Vining Explores History of Gun Debate
These essays offer both general readers and specialists a valuable study of how history itself has become a contested site within the wider national legal debate about firearms.
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August 11, 2019
Can the NRA Survive its Current Crisis?
by Robert J. Spitzer
The NRA is facing a serious crisis.
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SOURCE: The New Yorker
8/6/2019
How the Trail of American White Supremacy Led to El Paso
We invariably find ourselves locked in conflict with dangerous men intoxicated with their own sense of mission, and drunkenly believing that the only problem with the past is that we ever departed from it at all.
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6/9/19
Political Corruption Underwrites America’s Gun-Control Nightmare
by Thom Hartmann
The story of the rich politician whose extreme corruption inspired the 17th Amendment--and how the Citizens United ruling allows money to rule politics once again.
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SOURCE: New York Times
3/9/19
The Black Gun Owner Next Door
by Tiya Miles
I’m an African-American historian and, on most issues, decidedly liberal. Could I rethink my anti-gun stance?
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10/30/18
UPDATED What Historians Are Saying About the Pittsburgh Shooting and the Florida Bomber
Their tweets and retweets.
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SOURCE: The Conversation
7-3-18
Why Americans have long been fascinated by gunfighting preachers
by Steve Pinkerton
The anser involves two facts: 1. The US has the largest Christian population in the world, and 2. Americans love guns.
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7-3-18
The Media Have Been the Target of Violence since the Beginning of the Republic
by Harold Holzer
It’s always an ominous sign.
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SOURCE: The Panorama
6-4-18
The Persistence of a Mythic Second Amendment in Contemporary Constitutional Culture
by Saul Cornell
The most prominent myth obscuring historical understanding of the Second Amendment relates to America’s frontier past.
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SOURCE: NYT
5-24-18
Law professor has a theory about the 2nd Amendment historians might want to consider
by Carl T. Bogus
The theory: The amendment was included in part to protect slavery
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SOURCE: USA Today
5-21-18
Would the Founders want our kids to die in school shootings like Santa Fe? I doubt it.
by Jill Lawrence
Does anyone think they would expect us to live by a 230-year-old document?
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6/3/18
What LBJ Warned Allies in the Gun Control Debate After Robert Kennedy Was Assassinated
by Kyle Longley
“We have only two weeks, maybe only 10 days before the gun lobby gets organized.”
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SOURCE: NYT
4-3-18
How M.L.K.’s Death Helped Lead to Gun Control in the U.S.
LBJ had used the death of President John F. Kennedy to pass the Civil Rights Act, and wrung the Voting Rights Act from the Bloody Sunday march from Selma to Montgomery. In 1968 he used MLK's death to pass the Gun Control Act.
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SOURCE: Snopes
3/28/18
Was the NRA Founded to Protect Black People from the Ku Klux Klan?
Revisionist accounts of the origin of the National Rifle Association say it was formed to help freed slaves defend themselves against racist attacks after the Civil War.
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SOURCE: The Washington Post
3-27-18
Gun-control advocates believe their activism will mirror the fight for gay marriage. They’re wrong.
by James Kirchick
The better comparison is Prohibition — and we all know how that turned out.
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