64 min listen
Joseph Blocher and Darrell A.H. Miller, "The Positive Second Amendment: Rights, Regulation, and the Future of Heller" (Cambridge UP, 2018)
Joseph Blocher and Darrell A.H. Miller, "The Positive Second Amendment: Rights, Regulation, and the Future of Heller" (Cambridge UP, 2018)
ratings:
Length:
50 minutes
Released:
Jan 10, 2020
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
In The Positive Second Amendment: Rights, Regulation, and the Future of Heller (Cambridge University Press, 2018), Joseph Blocher and Darrell A.H. Miller insist that the Second Amendment is widely recognized but fundamentally misunderstood by the public and public officials. Misconceptions about what the amendment allows, forbids, and how it function as law distort American debates and public policy. Blocher and Miller provide a nuanced synthesis of politics, history, and legal arguments to recover a more balanced discourse – what they call a “positive” Second Amendment” – that accommodates both a right to bear arms and reasonable regulation.
Blocher and Miller begin with a puzzle. After the Sandy Hook shootings, 90% of the public and 74% of NRA members supported background checks for guns purchased at gun shows and online – yet the Manchin-Toomey Amendment failed in the Senate. The power of interest groups, Blocher and Miller insist, does not fully explain the disconnect between public opinion and policy. Examining the powerful constitutional rhetoric around what is “allowed” by the Second Amendment provides a fuller picture of the political and legal landscape. The book systematically works through the legal history of the amendment to demonstrate how extremists on both sides fail to understand the Second Amendment. Written in clear terms (such that it can be read by citizens, students, and scholars), The Positive Second Amendment provides accessible and balanced scholarship on a polarizing topic in politics and law.
The podcast concludes with thoughts on the firearms law case heard by the Supreme Court in December 2019.
Susan Liebell is associate professor of political science at Saint Joseph’s University Carroll in Philadelphia. She is the author of Democracy, Intelligent Design, and Evolution: Science for Citizenship (Routledge, 2013).
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Blocher and Miller begin with a puzzle. After the Sandy Hook shootings, 90% of the public and 74% of NRA members supported background checks for guns purchased at gun shows and online – yet the Manchin-Toomey Amendment failed in the Senate. The power of interest groups, Blocher and Miller insist, does not fully explain the disconnect between public opinion and policy. Examining the powerful constitutional rhetoric around what is “allowed” by the Second Amendment provides a fuller picture of the political and legal landscape. The book systematically works through the legal history of the amendment to demonstrate how extremists on both sides fail to understand the Second Amendment. Written in clear terms (such that it can be read by citizens, students, and scholars), The Positive Second Amendment provides accessible and balanced scholarship on a polarizing topic in politics and law.
The podcast concludes with thoughts on the firearms law case heard by the Supreme Court in December 2019.
Susan Liebell is associate professor of political science at Saint Joseph’s University Carroll in Philadelphia. She is the author of Democracy, Intelligent Design, and Evolution: Science for Citizenship (Routledge, 2013).
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Released:
Jan 10, 2020
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Robert N. Gross, “Public vs. Private: The Early History of School Choice in America” (Oxford UP, 2018): There are numerous political debates about education policy today, but some of the most heated surround vouchers, charter schools, and other questions about public funding and oversight of private schools. Though many of these questions feel new, by New Books in Public Policy