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Repeal the Second Amendment: The Case for a Safer America Hardcover – January 28, 2020

by Allan J. Lichtman (Author)
3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 43 ratings
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A radical case for the repeal of the 2nd Amendment as the only way to control gun violence in America

There's an average of one mass shooting per day in the United States. Given the ineffectiveness of the gun control lobby, it's time for a strategy with spine. In Repeal the Second Amendment, Allan J. Lichtman has written the first book that uses history, legal theory and up-to-the-minute data to make a compelling case for the amendment’s repeal in order to create a clear road to sensible gun control in the US.

Repeal the Second Amendment explores both the true history and current interpretation of the Second Amendment to expose the NRA’s blatant historical manipulations and irresponsible fake news releases. Lichtman looks at the history of firearms and gun regulations from colonial times to the present to explain how a historically forgotten sentence in the Constitution has become a flash point of recent politics that benefits only the gun industry, their lobbyists, and the politicians on their payroll. He probes court decisions and the effective lobbying and public relations strategies of the gun lobby as well as the ineffectiveness of the gun control movement for lessons in doing better.

What emerges is a clear and cogent plan--repeal and replace the Second Amendment without taking guns away from anyone who has them now--to make the US a safer place. It's time to Repeal the Second Amendment, and Allan Lichtman is the man to bring this radical plan to America.

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Previous page
  1. Print length
    336 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    St. Martin's Press
  4. Publication date
    January 28, 2020
  5. Dimensions
    5.25 x 1 x 7.75 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1250244404
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1250244406
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for Repeal the Second Amendment:

"Lichtman’s damning portrait of the NRA persuades . . . . This call to action will resonate with gun control advocates."
―Publishers Weekly

“A thoroughgoing survey of that most troublesome of constitutional matters. Useful ammunition for an argument on gun rights.”
―Kirkus Reviews

Praise for The Embattled Vote:

“[An] important book… [Lichtman] uses history to contextualize the fix we’re in today... With luck, this fine history might just help to fan the flame.” ―New York Times Book Review

Praise for The Case for Impeachment:

"It is still striking to see the full argument unfold and realize that you don’t have to be a zealot to imagine some version of it happening…Lies. Abuse of power. Treason. Crimes against humanity. Martial law. Lichtman throws everything Trump’s way." ―Washington Post

“Liberal catnip.” ―Joe Scarborough, Morning Joe

About the Author

Allan J. Lichtman is Distinguished Professor of History at American University and the author of many acclaimed books on U.S. political history, including White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, FDR and the Jews (with Richard Breitman), and The Case for Impeachment. He is regularly sought out by the media for his authoritative views on voting and elections.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ St. Martin's Press (January 28, 2020)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1250244404
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250244406
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.25 x 1 x 7.75 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 43 ratings

About the author

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Allan J. Lichtman

Allan J. Lichtman

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Allan J. Lichtman received his PhD from Harvard University in 1973 and is currently

Distinguished Professor of History at American University in Washington, D.C. He specializes

in American political history and the presidency. Dr. Lichtman has authored or co-authored nine

books, and hundreds of scholarly and popular articles. His latest book is The Case for

Impeachment (Dey Street books, 2017), was an independent book store best seller, an

Amazon.com bestseller in several academic categories, and a Newsweek, best new book release.

Dr. Lichtman’s book FDR and the Jews (Harvard, 2013, with Richard Breitman), won

the National Jewish Book Award in American Jewish History. It was a 2013 New York Times

editor’s choice, and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History. His book, White

Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement (Grove/Atlantic 2008), was

a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in non-fiction. The Teaching Company

produced his video lectures on Great Presidents as part of their “Great Courses” series.

Dr. Lichtman is the co-developer of the Keys system that has successfully predicted the

outcome of every presidential election since 1984. In September 2016, he defied the

conventional wisdom to predict the election of Donald Trump. In early 2016, Rowman &

Littlefield published the sixth edition of his Keys book series, Predicting the Next President: The

Keys to the White House 2016.

Dr. Lichtman has lectured extensively in the United States and abroad. He has provided

commentary for all major television and radio outlets and is regularly quoted by leading

newspapers and magazines worldwide. He has served as an expert witness in more than 90

federal civil rights cases, including recent landmark cases challenging restrictive voting laws in

North Carolina and Texas. As an expert for the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights Dr. Lichtman

discovered that the outcome of the 2000 presidential election turned on the vast disparity in rates

at which officials rejected ballots cast by blacks and whites in Florida. Dr. Lichtman received the

American University Scholar/Teacher of the year award for 1992-3, the University’s highest

academic honor.

Customer reviews

3.9 out of 5 stars
3.9 out of 5
43 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

History Student
5.0 out of 5 stars The Madness Needs to Stop.
Reviewed in the United States on February 29, 2020
Verified Purchase
“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” How did a once inconsequential, dismissed, and somewhat forgotten, sliver of the United States Constitution become such a hotbed of political strife and the source of overwhelming, mass violence? In Repeal the Second Amendment: The Case for a Safer America, Allan Lichtman, a distinguished professor of history at American University, draws upon a wealth of source material and meticulous historical research to explain how the National Rifle Association (NRA) has hijacked the history of the Second Amendment. In an effort to convince gun control advocates that they must pursue the repeal of the Second Amendment, Lichtman probes the history of firearms and gun regulations from colonial times to the present to detail the ways in which the NRA has manufactured a distorted history of gun ownership in America. Lichtman argues that the “iron triangle” of the gun lobby, the gun industry, and an array of pro-gun (mostly Republican) politicians have used a twisted and misleading history of the Second Amendment to advance their own interests, and enrich their pockets, while entrapping Americans into an endless cycle of gun violence. To solve American’s gun violence problem, Lichtman concludes, the Second Amendment must be repealed.
In Lichtman’s view, gun control advocates have been fighting a losing battle because they have fallen too eagerly into a defensive position that attempts to support the Second Amendment as a measure protecting a private right to own guns while also advocating for effective gun control measures. “By playing not to lose,” Lichtman explains, “the gun control movement has been losing. It wins only by becoming as bold and uncompromising as the gun lobby.” As Lichtman contends, it is time for gun control reformers to inspire a different political reality and set the terms for a fresh debate regarding gun violence and responsible gun ownership in America. That debate begins by recapturing the more accurate but, nonetheless, neglected history of the Second Amendment.
Lichtman’s brilliantly thorough and precise research in Repeal the Second Amendment shows how the work of historians, and other scholars, can engage a wider stream of audiences and guide public debate towards a more productive pathway for inciting essential change. In 2019 alone there were 419 mass-shooting incidents and almost 40,000 deaths related to gun violence. That madness needs to stop. The lunacy around the historically inaccurate and deceitfully contrived notion of an absolute, ungovernable private right to keep and bear any and all firearms needs to stop. As Lichtman persuasively argues, the insidious gun violence crisis that has plagued the United States can only be attended to once gun control reformers reclaim the Second Amendment’s history and move towards the amendment’s repeal.
16 people found this helpful
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Scott Vehstedt
5.0 out of 5 stars A field Guide to History
Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2020
Professor Allan Lichtman is a distinguished professor of history at American University. Here he writes the book many of us have been waiting for, one that lays bear the historical foundation for standing up to the gun lobby.

Repeal the Second Amendment opens by considering the failure of the United States to sufficiently address the scourge of gun violence. Why does America continue to wallow in death and violence when other nations have enacted simple and effective solutions without any corresponding loss of freedom?

Lichtman locates both the problem and the solution in American history.

The first few chapters examine the role that guns played in colonial and early America. These opening chapters dismantle some of the more pernicious myths and propaganda of the gun lobby regarding the necessity of personal firearms for self-defense and the preservation of freedom. They also demonstrate the historical precedent for treating guns as weapons of war suited to a well-organized militia.

Equally as significant, they demonstrate the way in which lobbyists manufacture a false history of the second amendment’s framing through distortion and fabrication. For example, George Washington never claimed that “Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the people’s liberty's teeth.”

The middle chapters focus on the policy debates of the twentieth century and the ways that a rejuvenated NRA sought to change the law and reimagine American history to serve its own ends.

Polls have shown that Americans support gun control in each decade that the question has been asked. Yet, those in favor of gun control have failed to coalesce behind a single organization capable of matching the NRA in terms of funding or influence. Thus, the *one* fist defeats the *five* fingers as the fictional king Robert Baratheon of Game of Thrones quipped.

Neither assassinations, public opinion, nor American history slowed the NRA from a campaign of misdirection and deceit, as Lichtman documents.

The final chapters systematically detail and debunk some of the more common myths of the NRA and offer a path forward.

Many of Lichtman’s proposals already enjoy broad public support. The founding fathers enshrined a most precious safeguard against tyranny in the Constitution: the power to amend their words to the needs and beliefs of future generations. Repeal the Second Amendment makes as strong a case as any contemporary or previous work to rouse the population to that end.
4 people found this helpful
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K. R. Baylor
2.0 out of 5 stars An interesting thought-piece, but flawed.
Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2022
Verified Purchase
Pure onanism. There is no mention at all of either former Reps. Wm. Hughes (D-NJ) or Major Owens (D-NY) legislative actions, who respectively passed bans on new ownership of full-auto firearms in 1986 , and the lawmaker whose disastrous H.J.Res. 81 in 1993--the last time Congress saw a Second Amendment repeal filed--gave the NRA new fundraising prowess for the next 25 _years_.

The author's zealotry in thinking there is a fair comparison between the repeal of the 18th Amendment by the 21st Amendment is also misplaced. He should have reversed the comparisons, as it would be more applicable to his point since the 18th Amendment passage is more akin to the legislative fervor he seeks in a future Congress.

At the end of the day, with the new SCOTUS Bruen ruling, much of Lichtman's prescriptions for a fantasy "gun-free America" would now be found unconstitutional.

A misguided tome, but entertaining.
9 people found this helpful
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