Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America

by Adam Winkler

Overview

A provocative history that reveals how guns—not abortion, race, or religion—are at the heart of America's cultural divide.

Gunfight is a timely work examining America’s four-centuries-long political battle over gun control and the right to bear arms. In this definitive and provocative history, Adam Winkler reveals how guns—not abortion, race, or religion—are at the heart of America’s cultural divide. Using the landmark 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller—which invalidated a law banning handguns in the nation’s capital—as a springboard, Winkler brilliantly weaves together the dramatic stories of gun-rights advocates and gun-control lobbyists, providing often unexpected insights into the venomous debate that now cleaves our nation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393082296
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	09/12/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	474,669
File size:	674 KB

About the Author

Adam Winkler is a professor at UCLA School of Law, where he specializes in American constitutional law. His scholarship has been cited by the Supreme Court of the United States and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New Republic, Atlantic, Slate, and Scotusblog.

Editorial Reviews

…provocative…Where this book is most interesting and useful is in the sections in which Mr. Winkler examines the early history of gun rights and gun control in the United States.
—The New York Times

Michiko Kakutani

"A succinct and fascinating introduction to the legal and historical issues at the heart of the gun debate."

Chicago Tribune - Eric Arnesen

"In Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America, Adam Winkler tells the remarkable story of the rag-tag group of libertarian lawyers who challenged nearly a century of lower-court precedent to bring a clear-cut Second Amendment case to the Supreme Court. This is an engaging and provocative legal drama about the six-year courtroom journey of District of Columbia v Heller and a fascinating survey of the misunderstood history of guns and gun control in America."

Wall Street Journal

Constitutional law scholar Winkler (law, Univ. of California, Los Angeles) presents an extensive overview of the history of state and federal attempts to regulate firearms. The author shows how political pressures and popular will can be exerted upon both liberal and conservative politicians to periodically tighten and loosen restrictions on the possession and sale of guns. A central theme of the book is the ripple effect on gun-control laws resulting from pendulum swings in social policy brought about by economic uncertainty and periodic bursts of political and social violence. The author shows how gun-control laws are frequently knee-jerk reactions to sudden shifts in public policy rather than carefully planned political and legal responses to social change and the evolution of constitutional thought. VERDICT Aimed at an academic audience and well documented, the book is replete with analysis of the legal, political, and social issues involved and is thus recommended for academic, law, and larger public libraries.—Philip Y. Blue, New York State Supreme Court Criminal Branch Law Lib., New York

Library Journal