A Little Handbook on the Second Amendment: What the American aristocracy Does Not Want You to Know.

Book Description
A Little Handbook on the Second Amendment is one of the only books (maybe the only book) on the Second Amendment providing an easily read summary of information found in academic books. It includes information that our government, big business interests, and the American media do not want you to know. It clearly demonstrates that the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights recognizes a right of individual citizens to possess and carry privately owned firearms free from infringement by state governments and the federal government.


From the Author
Between 1776 and 2000, many Americans lost sight of their moral and political compass. We may be on our way to losing our system of government if the debate on guns is not re-focused on issues as seen by the Founding Fathers. To put America on the path intended by the Founding Fathers, "the people" have to regain influence over government representatives. They are out of our control and too much under the control of big business interests. Hopefully this book will be widely read by American citizens. We need to be better informed about these issues: (A) how our government is meant to function, (B) how an armed citizenry is meant to provide checks against, (1) government encroachment of individual rights, (2) government tyranny, and (3) lawless attacks by criminals that government cannot prevent. Hopefully many Americans will read A Little Handbook on the Second Amendment. Hopefully many will send copies to their government representatives. Too many politicians seem to be trained to ignore what they do not want to hear. If you send a government representative a copy and then write frequently using the book as a reference, it will be more difficult for him or her to ignore the truth.


From the Back Cover
An easily read summary of information found in academic books on the Second Amendment. Every American should read this book. Every politician should receive a copy of this book. The greatest challenge of a scholar is to change the mind of another.


About the Author
Joseph L. Bass patterns his educational development and learning after Ralph Waldo Emerson's "American Scholar Address" that was delivered as the Phi Beta Kappa address at Harvard commencement in 1837. An American scholar is not a European scholar bookworm who seeks to find truth in books alone. Books are for the scholars idle times. An American scholar seeks truth through the real-world practical application of ideas. Without [action] thought cannot ripen into truth. For the last 19 years, he has been a consultant for major corporations, the federal government, and state governments. His day-job involves work in the fields of management consultation, and information and computer sciences to include the modeling, analysis, and redesign of business/functional processes and information systems. He plans to write more little handbooks on a variety of social sciences issues.


Excerpted from A Little Handbook on the Second Amendment: What the American aristocracy Does Not Want You to Know. by Dr. Joseph L. Bass. Copyright © 1999. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
An Armed Citizenry in England The English had a system of government recognizing the right of "the people" to be armed. During ancient times, the English were exposed to raids from Germanic tribesAll of "the people" made up the "militia." The ancient English kings required subjects to be armed at all times. The Laws of Alfred (871-899) and the Laws of Cnut (1020-1023) considered being armed a right and a duty of all male citizens. A person was fined if he failed to have arms available so that he could respond to a community emergency. Such response was known as "responding to the hue and cry." During Anglo-Saxon times a ceremony was conducted when a slave was freed, placing weapons into his hands, indicating his new status as a free man. Having and bearing arms was a symbol of liberty. Anglo-Saxon laws made disarming a free man a crime. In 1066, the Normans (from what would be part of France today) conquered the English and thus began a process of the English losing their rights. Henry II's 1181 Assize of Arms recognized being armed as a right and a duty. But individual English subjects were to possess arms according to their "station" in life. That is to say, subjects could only have certain arms based on their wealth and the amount of land they owned. Because the king feared revolt, the poor could own only certain weapons and certain quantities of weapons. In 1199, King John came to the throne and proceeded to disarm nobles and commoners alike. This action and other efforts to establish an absolute monarch resulted in a revolt in 1215. The nobles forced John to sign the Magna Charta which included recognition that the nobles had a right to correct the king by use of force and recognition of the right to keep and bear arms as established in the Assize of Arms. It would be difficult for the nobles and commoners to correct the king if the nobles and commoners were disarmed and only the king and his army had arms. For a while the corrective influence of the Magna Charta continued. Henry III (1216-1272) and Edward I (1272-1307) issued edicts supporting the concept of armed subjects, providing the force to ward off foreign aggression and efforts to establish an absolute monarchy. But the development of firearms and their ownership by the poor and middle classes caused the monarchy to fear this new power in the hands of commoners. Henry VII (1485-1603), Henry VIII (1509-1647), and Charles II (1660-1685) issued edicts seeking to disallow firearms and crossbow ownership to all but wealthy landowners. But even Henry VIII, who sought to establish an absolute monarchy, still recognized the value of an armed citizenry, encouraging in 1511, that every man own, practice, and have available long bow and arrows. Cromwell's English Revolution of 1642-1660 failed to establish equal rights for commoners. Cromwell and Charles II, who was made the king following the revolution, preferred establishing a select militia (something like a national guard) instead of a militia made up of the body of the people. Charles II enacted legislation that attempted to disarm all but the aristocratic landowners. This was done, like many attempts at disarming English subjects, through gun control laws disguised as laws designed to preserve game. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 resulted in the abdication of James II (successor to Charles II). A central focus of the revolution was abolishing the king's standing armies and reinstating the right of English subjects to keep and bear arms. (Arms were only restored to Protestant subjects. England was involved in the same kind of religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics we see in Northern Ireland today). The resulting English Bill of Rights (1689) recognized the right of individual Protestants to keep and bear arms for self-defense and the right to use them collectively to revolt against oppressive government. But even with the recognition of these rights, the English parliament passed laws disarming the Irish and Scots, excepting only those who supported domination by the English government. It also passed gun control legislation against colonialists throughout the British Empire. In the colonies, homes were searched for arms and offenders were shot on sight. When the same attempts were made to suppress American colonist, the American Revolution began.


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