Marc Piscotty/Getty Images

Marc Piscotty/Getty Images

The Second Amendment. In April 1938, an Oklahoma bank robber was arrested for carrying an unregistered sawed-off shotgun across state lines. The robber, Jack Miller, put forward a novel defense: that a law banning him from carrying that gun violated his Second Amendment rights. For most of U.S. history, the Second Amendment was one of the sleepier ones. It rarely showed up in court, and was almost never used to challenge laws. Jack Miller’s case changed that. And it set off a chain of events that would fundamentally change how U.S. law deals with guns. Today on Throughline’s We the People: How the second amendment came out of the shadows. (Originally ran as The Right to Bear Arms)

Guest:

Joseph Blocher, Professor of Law at Duke University Law School and co-author of The Positive Second Amendment: Rights, Regulation and the Future of Heller

To access bonus episodes and listen to Throughline sponsor-free, subscribe to Throughline+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/throughline.