The Right to Keep and Bear Arms Under the Tennessee Constitution: A Case Study in Civic Republican Thought

Abstract:     
State constitutional rights to arms are of considerable interest, both for their own sake and as sources of insight into the meaning of the Federal Constitution's right to keep and bear arms. This article examines the origins and scope of the right to arms provided in the Tennessee Constitution, including Tennessee cases that, interestingly, were cited as authority by the United States Supreme Court in the 1939 case of United States v. Miller, one of the Supreme Court's few cases to address Second Amendment issues in any depth.

Accepted Paper Series