"Dr. Angus McClellan has just posted 151 pages of `Additional Research on Comprehensive Security and Sensitive Places` showing that at the Founding armed security was tied to each of Bruen`s three sensitive places where arms could be restricted. Historical tradition from the American colonies and early states demonstrates that the predicate for banning weapons by the public at courts, legislative assemblies, and polling places was the government`s provision of real protection in fact...."
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"...McClellan states: `The primary purpose of this additional research is to determine whether all 13 original colonies or early states had armed, government security personnel assigned to doorways at the sensitive places of courthouses/courtrooms, legislative buildings/chambers, and polling places.` A secondary purpose, he continues, is to confirm that courthouses, legislatures, and polling places were indeed `sensitive,` i.e., governments could or did ban weapons there....The research compiles sources showing where bans were enacted with evidence that such places were secured.

"McClellan`s research is truly overwhelming and is supported by hundreds of footnotes. Weapons were not necessarily always banned in the subject places, but they could be; the ultimate point is that these places were secured by government agents. I will mention only one entry illustrative of each of the identified sensitive places.

" `Courthouses. At the trial of Aaron Burr, General James Wilkinson was disarmed in the court by the U.S. marshal to prevent him from intimidating the jury, indicating at least that (1) weapons were or could be banned in court, (2) government officers were present in court to disarm people....` "

The above excerpts are from my Second Amendment Roundup blog post, "Sensitive Places" Issue Coming to a Head? (10/15/26).

Read the post at reason.com/volokh or copy and paste: https://reason.com/volokh/2026/10/15/second-amendment-roundup-sensitive-places-issue-coming-to-a-head/

Link can also be accessed through the home page of my website, stephenhalbrook.com
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#sensitiveplacesdoctrine #gunrestriction #firearmslaw #historyandtradition #secondamendmentroundup ...

"The development of defensive arms were viewed through the Roman philosophy of nature as a part of the growth of civilization. The poet Lucretius mused: `Tilling of fields, walls, laws, and arms, and roads...--all these arts were learned by practice and the mind`s experience, as men walked forward step by step.` "

From Lucretius`s poem "Of the Nature of Things" (De Rerum Natura), written in the 1st century BC; cited in Halbrook, That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right, p. 19.
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#lucretius #poetandphilosopher #OftheNatureofThings #defensivearms #thateverymanbearmed ...

[ENGLISH, FRANÇAISE ⬇️] Pierre Laval, o líder fantoche da França de Vichy ocupada pelos nazistas, foi executado nesta data em 1945 por traição. "Após a guerra, procurando justificar as suas ações enquanto aguardava julgamento, Laval escreveu: `A violação mais escandalosa da Convenção do Armistício foi a ultrapassagem pelo exército alemão da linha de demarcação` em 1942, acrescentando que “o armistício durou quatro longos anos, e não tínhamos meios nem armas, a não ser as negociações hoje descritas como "inteligência com o inimigo", para servir de barreira à crueldade e à rapacidade alemãs`. A falta de armas pode ser atribuída, em parte, ao decreto do próprio Laval, de 1935, de que as armas de fogo fossem registradas na polícia e à sua subsequente colaboração com os alemães."

De Halbrook, Desarmamento Na França Ocupada Pelos Nazistas, 179-180.
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Pierre Laval, the puppet leader of Nazi occupied Vichy France, was executed on this date in 1945 for treason. "Seeking to justify his actions after the war while awaiting trial, Laval wrote: `The most lurid violation of the Armistice Convention was the crossing of the demarcation line by the German army` in 1942, adding that `the Armistice lasted four long years, and we had no means, no weapons, other than negotiations described to-day as "intelligence with the enemy," to serve as a barrier to German cruelty and rapacity.` The lack of weapons could be traced in part to Laval`s own 1935 decree that firearms be registered with the police and his subsequent collaboration with the Germans."

From Halbrook, Gun Control in Nazi-Occupied France, 161-162.
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Pierre Laval, dirigeant fantoche de la France de Vichy sous occupation nazie, fut exécuté pour trahison à cette date en 1945. « Après la guerre, cherchant à justifier ses actes en attendant son procès, Laval écrira: « la plus flagrante violation de la convention d’armistice fut le franchissement de la ligne de démarcation par l’armée allemande » en 1942, ajoutant que « l’armistice dura quatre longues années, et nous n’avions aucun moyen, aucune arme, outre les négociations qualifiées aujourd’hui « d’entente avec l’ennemi », pour servir [Suite dans les commentaires] ...

"[T]he Second Amendment and the ongoing love affair of Americans with private firearms ownership have endured for well over two centuries. If some politicians and judges are mystified by the meaning of the words `the right of the people to ... bear arms,` most Americans are not. The Bill of Rights is not just ten commandments that tell the government what it cannot do, but is a testament to instruct the people as to their rights so they can protect them."

From Halbrook, The Right to Bear Arms: A Constitutional Right of the People or a Privilege of the Ruling Class?, p. 10 (hardback edition).
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#therighttobeararmshalbrook #rightofthepeople #shallnotbeinfringed #2ahistory #constitutionalright ...

"After Nat Turner’s slave revolt in 1831, Virginia law was amended to provide: `No free negro or mulatto shall be suffered to keep or carry any firelock of any kind, any military weapon, or any powder or lead….` It repealed the prior law that authorized justices of the peace `to permit slaves to keep and use guns or other weapons,` and that also authorized courts “`o grant licenses to free negroes and mulattoes to keep or carry any firelock of any kind, any military weapon, or any
powder or lead….`

"Such laws, as applied to free persons of color, were upheld partly on the basis that they were not citizens. The North Carolina Supreme Court upheld that state’s ban on the ground that `the free people of color cannot be considered as citizens….` Georgia’s high court held: `Free persons of color have never been recognized here as citizens; they are not entitled to bear arms, vote for members of the legislature, or to hold any civil office.`

These state laws were bolstered by the U.S. Supreme Court in Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857), which notoriously held that African Americans were not citizens and had no rights that must be respected. Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote that if African Americans were considered citizens, `it would give them the full liberty of speech…; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.`”

From Halbrook, America`s Rifle: The Case for the AR-15, pgs. 132-133.

Image: "The Discovery of Nat Turner" by William Henry Shelton (1882)
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#natturnerrebellion #dredscott #2ahistory #gunrightsmatter #AmericasRifleTheCaseForTheAR15 ...

On this date in 1871, U.S. President Grant warned the Ku Klux Klan in South Carolina that martial law would be declared if the KKK did not disperse. Later that year, "numerous South Carolina Klansmen were indicted under the Enforcement Act for conspiring to violate the rights of blacks to assemble, keep and bear arms, and vote, and their freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. . . . The trial proceedings are significant both as an interpretation of the Second, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments, and because they document the Klan`s systematic efforts to disarm blacks."

From Halbrook, Securing Civil Rights: Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Right to Bear Arms, p. 121.
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#presidentulyssesgrant #kukluxklanhistory #enforcementact #gunrightsmatter #securingcivilrights ...

After the Civil War ended in 1865, several firearms manufacturers turned to toy production to keep their factories running as demand for weapons declined. Among their creations were cap guns, which used small gunpowder caps to produce a loud bang without firing a projectile. They quickly became popular with young cowboys and cowgirls.

Over the decades, cap guns evolved in both materials and mechanisms, from early cast-iron models to wooden, metal-alloy, and plastic designs, with firing systems ranging from single-shot to rapid-fire. The technology changed, but cap guns are still made today.

Photo source: The NC Museum of Dolls, Toys & Miniatures, Spencer, North Carolina. https://ncmdtm.org
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#capgun #capguns #cowboyfun #nostalgictoys #toyguns ...

The meaning of a "well regulated militia" and of the "arms" the people had the right to bear, was particularized during debates on the federal Militia Act of 1792. Rep. Roger Sherman "conceived it to be the privilege of every citizen, and one of his most essential rights, to bear arms, and to resist every attack upon his liberty or property, by whomsoever made."

From 14 Documentary History of the First Federal Congress, pgs. 92-93. (Quoted in Halbrook, The Founders` Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms, p. 305.)
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#militiaact #federalmilitiaact #rogersherman #righttobeararms #thefounderssecondamendment ...