Gun Control on Trial: Inside the Supreme Court Battle Over the Second Amendment by Brian Doherty


Gun Control on Trial: Inside the Supreme Court Battle Over the Second Amendment
Title : Gun Control on Trial: Inside the Supreme Court Battle Over the Second Amendment
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 1933995254
ISBN-10 : 9781933995250
Language : English
Format Type : Hardcover
Number of Pages : 160
Publication : First published November 1, 2008

This past June, the Supreme Court decided a question at the heart of one of America's most impassioned debates, ruling that individual citizens have the constitutional right to possess guns. With that decision, the District's handgun ban―one of the toughest and most controversial in the nation―was ended. In Gun Control on Trial, journalist Brian Doherty tells the full story behind the landmark District of Columbia v. Heller ruling. With exclusive, behind the scenes access throughout the case, Doherty delved into the issues of this monumental case to provide a compelling look at the inside stories, The plaintiffs' fight for the right to protect themselves and their families from violent neighborhoods. The activist lawyers who worked exhaustively to affirm that right. The forces that fought to stop the case, including city officials and the NRA. The story of the Heller case stretches back to long before the decision struck down D.C.'s restrictive gun ban and forward to the future of the political and legal battle over gun control in America. Doherty provides clear, concise explanations of the issues and battles that have driven the gun control debate for decades, detailing how the Heller decision is a new starting point for the gun control debate as it passionately and energetically continues in the years ahead. It's important to note that the Heller decision does not settle every controversy in the gun control debate. It only settles the legal question of whether or not the right to possess weapons under the Second Amendment extends to personal it does, writes Doherty. What the Supreme Court decided in Heller may be narrow in its direct and immediate effect; but it's deep in its implications for the relationship between the government and the American people, explains Doherty. It establishes a new shape to the arena in which the legal and political struggle over guns and gun control will be fought. And that fight assuredly continues.

Gun Control on Trial: Inside the Supreme Court Battle Over the Second Amendment Reviews

  • Bill Sleeman


    I picked up Brian Doherty’s “Gun Control on Trial: Inside the Supreme Court Battle over the Second Amendment” thinking it might be a more comprehensive history of the libertarian / conservative approach to the issue. The book is mostly about the Heller Case. This might have been okay if the book had actually focused on the case process in greater detail than it did, instead it seemed really to serve as a venue for author Doherty to pontificate on how stupid non-gun owners are (caveat: I grew up with hunting as an activity and own a gun that I have not fired in years – don’t have a need to and have not hunted since my Dad passed away) and how non-gun owners simply do not understand the Second Amendment like gun owners do. Bah! Doherty engages in a lot of ad hominin attacks and gratuitous asides (as well as overly broad parenthetical praise for those gun advocates he agrees with) that I began to wonder if anyone at the Cato Institute actually edited this work ahead of publication? This book does have some redeeming value in that the final chapter provides a still very useful (published in 2008) overview of the situation post-Heller with some good questions on what to do next to protect the rights of gun owners while still ensuring that reasonable controls are possible. Pretty certain I don’t agree with Doherty’s solutions but he does ask good questions at the end. I was also put off by his casual and inconsistent method of referring to the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States solely by their last names. It is Justice Thomas and Chief Justice Roberts and not Thomas or just Roberts!

  • John McGrath

    Perhaps one of the main reasons for my disappointment with this book is that I have read Reason Magazine for years, including all of Brian Doherty's columns on the subject, so there was very little in it that I had not read already. But I would also have to say that the book was not a page-turner either; it was rather dry.[return][return]The book is rather short (126 pages), and less than half deals with the Heller case directly. The rest of the book covers the legal and historical background of gun rights and the gun control debate in the United States. If that is what you are looking for, then this book is probably what you want.

  • Adam Wiggins

    I was hoping for a balanced look at all sides of the gun control debate, but this book does not seem to be that. Gave up 20% of the way through.