In Search of the Second Amendment

Outline of the documentary

• Legal Scholarship and the Second Amendment

• Duty to be Armed

• King Charles I, Oliver Cromwell, and Richard Cromwell
• King Charles II, King James II, and Gun Control
• The Glorious Revolution, King William III, Queen Mary II, and the Bill of Rights 1689

• The Colonies and the Duty to be Armed
• The Right to Arms and William Blackstone

• Britain takes notice and the Redcoats Come to Boston
• Conflict Breaks Out

• Virginia Declaration of Rights
• Pennsylvania Declaration of Rights
• Massachusetts Declaration of Rights

• The Constitutional Convention and the Bill of Rights
• State Ratification and Declaration of Rights Proposals
• Virginia and the Demand for a Bill of Rights
• The Compromise and James Madison
• Drafting of the Right to Arms
• The Militia and Standing Armies

• Madison and the Bill of Rights
• How the Second Amendment was Drafted
• The Militia, the States, and the Federal Government
• The Senate and the Second Amendment
• Tench Coxe
• St. George Tucker
• William Rawle
• Thomas Cooley
• Contemporaries and the Second Amendment

• Meaning of "The People"
• Origin of the Collective Right
• Kansas Supreme Court
• The National Guard
• United States v. Miller
• United States v. Emerson

• Slave Codes
• Dred Scott v. Sandford
• Black Codes
• Views and Response of Congress
• Civil Rights Act of 1866 and Freedmen's Bureau Act of 1866
• The Federal Bill of Rights and the States
• The Fourteenth Amendment
• In Re Slaughter–House Cases
• United States v. Cruikshank
• D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation

• Professor Olson's and Don Kate's Experiences as workers during the Civil Rights Movement
• Deacons for Defense
• Robert Williams and the NRA
• Lumbee Indian Tribe

• Meaning of "The People" Revisited
• Dred Scott Revisited
• A New View of Standing Armies and Militias
• The Fourteenth Amendment Revisited
• Republican and Democratic Party Platforms on the Right to Arms
• Freedmen's Bureau Act of 1866 Revisited
• 18th and 19th Century Interpretation of the Second Amendment

• Armed Resistance and Genocide
• Protection from Different Sources of Oppression
• Frequency of Defensive Gun Uses and Crimes Committed
• Guns and Number of Lives Saved vs. Lives Taken
• Police and the Legal Duty to Protect the Public
• Warren v. District of Columbia
• View of Fellow Citizens
• Effectiveness of Defensive Gun Use
• Right of Self-defense and the Right to Arms
• Protecting the Second Amendment and Other Rights

• Closing Words
• Credits
• Dedications

Persons appearing in the documentary