I found Mr. Cramer's book while preparing a Motion to annul New York's anti-pistol law. It is very valuable both as a catalog of applicable cases, and concise analysis thereof. This book should be on every lawyers' bookshelf, on every Court bench. It is also of great value to the civil rights activist seeking to restore the Right to Arms to its proper position alongside the Freedoms of Speech, Press, and Association.

The first review said it all, but wanted to second that one. This book is full of information on gun ownership and the many infrigements that have occured and been ignored.

After a short chapter on the European origins of the right to keep and bear arms, Cramer plunges into a detailed analysis of the legal origins of the Second Amendment, and of the treatment of the right to bear arms in state and federal courts over the following 200 years. One of the particularly important contribution made by Cramer is his detailed analysis of gun control cases in the state courts in the 19th century. Judicial hostility to the right to bear arms, Cramer shows us, is nothing new. Intellectual dishonesty, mistrust of ordinary people, and sometimes outright lying have characterized the approach of much of the judiciary to the right to bear arms since 1820s. Not all state courts have been willing to use illogical legal "reasoning" to undermine the right to arms, but many have. As Cramer explicates, judicial contortions have been especially noticeable in slave-holding states. When legislatures have attempted to degrade (or even destroy entirely) the right to bear arms, too many courts have refused to intervene. Of course Cramer also discusses the many state court decisions from Georgia, Washington, and elsewhere in which courts have struck down laws aimed at gun-owners. Too often, scholars who write about legal topics get trapped in legal arcana, and end up producing a book that can be read only by legal specialists. Cramer, to his great credit, succeeds in making legal cases comprehensible to an ordinary reader, and at the same time treating the legal cases which the subtlety and sophistication that good legal analysis demands. For the Defense of the Themselves and the State is not a breezy read. It is 274 pages of single-spaced, small (but readable) text. This is a serious book. Any lawyer or historian with an interest in the right to arms will find the book fascinating. The book would be an excellent donation to a college library or a law school library. It would also do fine at a public library or a high school library. Review by Dave Kopel, Independence Institute, http://i2i.org

This book is an excellent way to inform oneself of their constitutional rights and arguments to win any gun debate. I recommend it with all my heart. It exposes the dirty tricks of the anti-firearm statistacs that gun control advocates have used. It also tells you the honest to god truth behind guns in america. If you haven't read this book and own a firearm you don't know the half of the damage that gun control advocates have done to the publics view on gun owners. I urge you to read this and have a accurate information explain to people the truth about guns in america.

The first part of the book is a short guide to gun rights activism, with advice on how to write letters to newspapers and elected officials, and other tips for activists. The much larger portion of the book covers various policy topics (for example, public health, crime statistics, various frauds perpetrated by anti-gun and pro-gun advocates). The information is presented in a clear, straightforward writing style, thoroughly supported by endnotes and other documentation. Thus, Firing Back is great one-volume source to help you write letters to the editor, educate your co-workers or friends about the gun issue, and turn yourself into a more informed citizen. Review by Dave Kopel, Independence Institute, http://i2i.org.

Robert Heinlein coined the phrase, "An armed society is a polite society." The fundamental truth in that saying is that most rational folks will think twice before engaging in provocative behavior when they know those they might insult have the ability to easily kill them.

Clayton Cramer's excellent book gives us an example of how there are exceptions to every rule. His excellent scholarship gives us an in depth feel for the culture that produced Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Sam Houston, and Jack Hays. The Scotch-Irish culture of the early frontier was one that Cramer calls the "honor culture". Those frontier guys fought at the drop of the hat (or more precisely, at the drop of a perceived insult). As Don Higginbotham tells us, in his excellent biography about another product of frontier culture ("Daniel Morgan: Revolutionary Rifleman"), sometimes they fought just for the fun of it.

Cramer gives us the granular details from original sources that supports his thesis that the goal of early southern and western reformers was to stop the fighting and the dueling.

He shows how concealed carry laws were a natural progression of government intervention after dueling was eliminated. The idea behind the legislation was that after dueling was banned, guys started fighting immediately after the perceived insult, instead of waiting for the duel. And, if the weapons of the opponent were concealed, the theory went, they were more likely to fight.

I am not sure that the laws that passed were ever needed. Certainly, if Cramer is right, the original rationale for the earliest concealed carry laws has long evaporated. It is attitudes and values that change cultures, not laws. Usually, the attitudes change first, thereby creating the law after it is not needed.

If you want to take a new look at the frontier culture of the early 1800's and understand how different it was then from now. If you want to understand a portion of the history of gun control in this country. Or, if you just want to read well researched and well presented historical scholarship, you should read this book.