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The historians examine America's relationship with firearms from colonial militias through the Wild West to modern gun politics. The Second Amendment has meant radically different things in different eras.
Highlights
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The 'right to bear arms' was about state militias until the 1970s — the individual rights interpretation is historically recent
Freeman traces how the Second Amendment was understood as protecting state militias (not individual gun ownership) for nearly 200 years. The individual rights interpretation only became mainstream through NRA advocacy in the 1970s-80s.•
The Wild West was actually less violent than modern America — frontier towns had stricter gun control than most states today
Balogh debunks the myth: Dodge City, Tombstone, and other frontier towns required visitors to surrender their firearms upon entry. The famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral was fought to enforce a gun control ordinance.