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Articles 1 - 11 of 11
Full-Text Articles in Law
Evolving Christian Attitudes Towards Personal And National Self-Defense, David B. Kopel
Evolving Christian Attitudes Towards Personal And National Self-Defense, David B. Kopel
David B Kopel
This Article analyzes the changes in orthodox Christian attitudes towards defensive violence. While the Article begins in the 19th century and ends in the 21st, most of the Article is about the 20th century. The Article focuses on American Catholicism and on the Vatican, although there is some discussion of American Protestantism.
In the nineteenth and early in the twentieth centuries, the traditional Christian concepts of Just War and of the individual's duty to use force to defend himself and his family remained uncontroversial, as they had been for centuries.
Disillusionment over World War I turned many Catholics and Protestants …
Ancient Hebrew Militia Law, David B. Kopel
Ancient Hebrew Militia Law, David B. Kopel
David B Kopel
The history of the laws of warfare and of arms possession in the ancient Hebrew kingdoms.
The Keystone Of The Second Amendment: Quakers, The Pennsylvania Constitution, And The Questionable Scholarship Of Nathan Kozuskanich, David B. Kopel, Clayton Cramer
The Keystone Of The Second Amendment: Quakers, The Pennsylvania Constitution, And The Questionable Scholarship Of Nathan Kozuskanich, David B. Kopel, Clayton Cramer
David B Kopel
Historian Nathan Kozuskanich claims that the Second Amendment-like the arms provision of the 1776 Pennsylvania Constitution-is only a guarantee of a right of individuals to participate in the militia, in defense of the polity. Kozuskanich’s claim about the Second Amendment is based on two articles he wrote about the original public meaning of the right to arms in Pennsylvania, including the 1776 and 1790 Pennsylvania constitutional arms guarantees.
Part I of this Article provides a straightforward legal history of the right to arms provisions in the 1776 Pennsylvania Constitution and of the 1790 Pennsylvania Constitution. We examine Kozuskanich’s claims about …
Pacifist Aggressives Vs. The Second Amendment: An Analysis Of Modern Philosophies Of Compulsory Non-Violence, David B. Kopel
Pacifist Aggressives Vs. The Second Amendment: An Analysis Of Modern Philosophies Of Compulsory Non-Violence, David B. Kopel
David B Kopel
This Article examines the strengths and weaknesses of modern pacifist religious philosophy. The Article suggests that some intellectual arguments for pacifism are logically solid (once certain premises are granted), while others have serious flaws. The article discusses five influential philosophical advocates of non-violence Thomas Merton, Stanley Hauerwas, Leo Tolstoy, Tony Campolo, and John Howard Yoder. In addition, the Article examines three real-world cases where the practice of non-violence was put into action: the Danish rescue of the Jews during WW II, the American Civil Rights movement in the South in the 1960s, and the invasion of the Chatham Islands—the home …
The Human Right Of Self-Defense, David B. Kopel, Paul Gallant, Joanne D. Eisen
The Human Right Of Self-Defense, David B. Kopel, Paul Gallant, Joanne D. Eisen
David B Kopel
The United Nations Human Rights Council has declared that there is no human right to self-defense. Moreover, the Council has ordered all governments to enact very restrictive gun laws (more severe than those of Washington, D.C., or New York City, for example), and has declared that failure to enact such laws constitutes a human rights violation. Further, the HRC states that it is a human rights violation for a government to allow person to use a firearm in self-defense against a rapist or other criminal who is not attempting homicide.
This Article critically examines the HRC's claims by analyzing the …
Dhimmitude And Disarmament, David B. Kopel
Dhimmitude And Disarmament, David B. Kopel
David B Kopel
Under shari'a law, non-Muslims, known as dhimmi, have been forbidden to possess arms, and to defend themselves from attacks by Muslims. The disarmament is one aspect of the pervasive civil inferiority of non-Muslims, a status known as dhimmitude. This Essay examines the historical effects of the shari'a disarmament, based on three books by Bat Ye'or, the world's leading scholar of dhimmitude. As Ye'or details, the disarmament had catastrophic consequences, extending far beyond the direct loss of the dhimmi's ability to defend themselves. The essay concludes by observing how pretend gun-free zones on college campuses turn the adults there into 21st …
Self-Defense In Asian Religions, David B. Kopel
Self-Defense In Asian Religions, David B. Kopel
David B Kopel
This Article investigates the attitudes of six Far Eastern religions - Confucianism, Taoism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, and Buddhism - towards the legitimacy of the use of force in individual and collective contexts. Self-defense is strongly legitimated in the theory and practice of the major Far Eastern religions. The finding is consistent with natural law theory that some aspects of the human personality, including the self-defense instinct, are inherent in human nature, rather than being entirely determined by culture.
Armed Resistance To The Holocaust, David B. Kopel
Armed Resistance To The Holocaust, David B. Kopel
David B Kopel
Contrary to myth of Jewish passivity, many Jews did fight back during the Holocaust. They shut down the extermination camp at Sobibor, rose up in the Warsaw Ghetto, and fought in the woods and swamps all over Eastern Europe. Indeed, Jews resisted at a higher rate than did any other population under Nazi rule. The experience of the Holocaust shows why Jews, and all people of good will, should support the right of potential genocide victims to possess defensive arms, and refutes the notion that violence is necessarily immoral.
The Catholic Second Amendment, David B. Kopel
The Catholic Second Amendment, David B. Kopel
David B Kopel
At the beginning of the second millennium, there was no separation of church and state, and kings ruled the church. Tyrannicide was considered sinful. By the end of the thirteenth century, however, everything had changed. The Little Renaissance that began in the eleventh century led to a revolution in political and moral philosophy, so that using force to overthrow a tyrannical government became a positive moral duty. The intellectual revolution was an essential step in the evolution of Western political philosophy that eventually led to the American Revolution.
The Scottish And English Religious Roots Of The American Right To Arms: Buchanan, Rutherford, Locke, Sidney, And The Duty To Overthrow Tyranny, David B. Kopel
The Scottish And English Religious Roots Of The American Right To Arms: Buchanan, Rutherford, Locke, Sidney, And The Duty To Overthrow Tyranny, David B. Kopel
David B Kopel
Many twenty-first century Americans believe that they have a God-given right to possess arms as a last resort against tyranny. One of the most important sources of that belief is the struggle for freedom of conscience in the United Kingdom during the reigns of Elizabeth I and the Stuarts. A moral right and duty to use force against tyranny was explicated by the Scottish Presbyterians George Buchanan and Samuel Rutherford. The free-thinking English Christians John Locke and Algernon Sidney broadened and deepened the ideas of Buchanan and Rutherford. The result was a sophisticated defense of religious freedom, which was to …
The Religious Roots Of The American Revolution And The Right To Keep And Bear Arms, David B. Kopel
The Religious Roots Of The American Revolution And The Right To Keep And Bear Arms, David B. Kopel
David B Kopel
This article examines the religious background of the American Revolution. The article details how the particular religious beliefs of the American colonists developed so that the American people eventually came to believe that overthrowing King George and Parliament was a sacred obligation. The religious attitudes which impelled the Americans to armed revolution are an essential component of the American ideology of the right to keep and bear arms.