The ‘individual mandate’ of citizens having the right to firearms, when they’re not part of a state-level Militia, seems to be a recent phenomenon:<p>&gt; The U.S. Supreme Court had never, until 2008, suggested even once that there was any such right. Warren Burger, the arch-conservative Supreme Court justice appointed by Richard Nixon, in an interview in 1991 described the then-new idea of an individual right to bear arms as “one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”<p>* <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theglobeandmail.com&#x2F;globe-debate&#x2F;article28078752.ece" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theglobeandmail.com&#x2F;globe-debate&#x2F;article28078752....</a><p>There&#x27;s a book mentioned in the above article called &quot;The Second Amendment: A Biography”, but haven’t had a chance to read it yet. The author, Michael Waldman, has some good interviews and talks online. It was released in 2014 and most of them are from then. These two are pretty good (about an hour each):<p>* <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=IopMFON6BNM" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=IopMFON6BNM</a><p>* <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=cxTOBh_AZJY" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=cxTOBh_AZJY</a>