Originalism and the 2d Amendment

[David Bernstein]

Is not the case that no proponent of the IR/SM model was invited to the
conference?  To someone like me, who is not an expert on the 2nd Amendment,
or a partisan of a particular interpretation, I must discount such a
symposium until there has been sufficient time and opportunity for opposing
scholars to respond.  A critique of a position that seems devastating when
promulgated often loses its force once one reads the rebuttal.  If Prof.
Bogus wanted the symposium to have an immediate impact, he should have
invited people who disagree with his views to the symposium, which would have
allowed the ignorant like myself to judge who makes the more persuasive case.

In a message dated 10/5/2001 11:47:02 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
rakove at STANFORD.EDU writes:


> I am a little surprised that in the current discussion of the relation
> between Michael Bellesiles' work and an originalist approach to the Second
> Amendment, no mention has been made of the Chicago-Kent symposium to which
> I and a number of other scholars contributed (and which will be reprinted
> in book form later this fall by the Free Press, under the editorship of
> Carl Bogus). Some of us are wondering whether the Bellesiles furor has
> served the interest or desire to avoid confronting the varied criticisms
> found there of the so-called Standard Model/individual right interpretation
> which its advocates repeatedly trumpet as having cleared the field of all
> opposition (a claim that seems to echo in Randy Barnett's reference to
> "dozens of constitutional scholars"), even though anyone examining the
> major works on which the S.M./i.r. approach relies will find them riddled
> with errors, questionable assumptions and methods, and curious omissions.


David E. Bernstein
Associate Professor
George Mason University
School of Law
(703) 993-8089
Home Page: http://mason.gmu.edu/~dbernste
Only One Place of Redress Home Page:
http://mason.gmu.edu/~dbernste/Redress.html

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