Skip to main content

Gun Rights

Here are some amusing -- and some very sad -- images we collected from the archives of American Heritage.

Click on the image below to start the slideshow.

To know what the Framers intended, we need to understand the late-18th century historical context.

Editor's Note: We asked Joseph Ellis, one of the leading scholars on the Founding era, to provide us with historical content for the Second Amendment and what the founders intended when they wrote it.

One of the best-known advocates of gun rights outlines where he thinks compromise is possible.

Editor's Note: The modern era of relaxed regulations on gun ownership began in 2008 when the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment guaranteed an individual right to bear arms.

The GIs came home to find that a political machine had taken over their Tennessee county. What they did about it astounded the nation.

In McMinn County, Tennessee, in the early 1940s, the question was not if you farmed, but where you farmed. Athens, the county seat, lay between Knoxville and Chattanooga along U.S. Highway 11, which wound its way through eastern Tennessee.

Enjoy our work? Help us keep going.

Now in its 75th year, American Heritage relies on contributions from readers like you to survive. You can support this magazine of trusted historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it by donating today.

Donate