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41 Baylor L. Rev. 629 (1989)
The Right to Bear Arms in Texas: The Intent of the Framers of the Bills of Rights

handle is hein.journals/baylr41 and id is 647 raw text is: THE RIGHT To BEAR ARMS IN TEXAS: THE INTENT OF THE FRAMERS OF THE BILLS OF RIGHTS Stephen P. Halbrook* The right to bear arms is essential to freedom. For it is the policy of governments to disarm the people, that they may have the opportunity to oppress them. -Robert Emmett Bledsoe Baylor, 1845 I. INTRODUCTION ......................................... 630 II. EVERY CITIZEN SHALL HAVE THE RIGHT: FROM THE REVOLUTION TO SECESSION ............................. 633 A. It has Demanded Us to Deliver Up Our Arms: Texians Revolt Against Santa Anna's Dictatorship .............. 633 B. The Constitutional Convention of 1845 ................. 640 C. Justice Oran M. Roberts and the Absolute Right to Bear A rm s .............................................. 645 III. ARMS, FREEDMEN, AND RECONSTRUCTION ................ 650 A. The Freedmen Disarmed, the Fourteenth Amendment Rejected ............................................ 650 B. The Reconstruction Convention of 1868 ................ 653 C. The People Have Been Disarmed Throughout the State . 657 IV. THE POWER TO REGULATE BUT NOT PROHIBIT: THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS AFTER RECONSTRUCTION ................. 662 A. Such Arms as Are Commonly Kept: The Duke Standard for Protected Arms ................................... 662 B. The Constitutional Convention of 1875 ................. 665 V. THE FEDERAL AND STATE COURTS CONSTRUE TEXAS FIREARMS PROHIBITIONS ................................ 669 A. Does the Fourteenth Amendment Incorporate the Second Amendment? The Enigma of Miller v. Texas (1894) ... 669 B. Judicially Created Exceptions .......................... 674 *J.D., Georgetown University (1978); Ph.D., Florida State University (1972). Author of A RIGHT To BEAR ARMS: STATE AND FEDERAL BILLS OF RIGHTS AND CONSTITUTIONAL GUARANTEES (Greenwood Press 1989); THAT EVERY MAN BE ARMED: THE EVOLUTION OF A CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT (University of New Mexico Press 1984). Attorney at Law, Fairfax, Virginia. This is part of a series of studies on the original understanding of the right to bear arms in the state bills of rights. See Halbrook, The Right to Bear Arms in the First State Bills of Rights: Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Vermont, and Massachusetts, 10 VT. L. REV. 20 (1985). The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of George S. Knight and Robert Dowlut for their comments on the manuscript, and of Richard O.N. Halbrook and Dr. James T. Brown for locating some of the sources on early Texas history.

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