Defending the Second Amendment by trying to sell books

In an attempt to draw to the attention of those now settling in for the next four years in Washington the importance and vast popularity of the Second Amendment, the folks at the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif., have a campaign underway to drive to the top of the amazon.com best-seller rankings Stephen Halbrook’s recent book, “The Founders’ Second Amendment: Origins of the Rights to Bear Arms.”

The campaign was actually launched back on Bill of Rights Day -- Dec. 15 -- but temporarily suspended when Amazon ran out of books. (David Theroux at the Institute says that little glitch has been taken care of.)

Halbrook’s research for the book formed the basis for his amici curiae brief as well as other briefs in last summer’s landmark “guns are a right” Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. Heller.

“Please go to the following web site and pledge to buy at least one copy of the book, and then urge everyone you know to make their pledge ASAP -- at http://www.secondamendmentbook.com/,” asks Mr. Theroux. Though I’m not sure why you’d want to bother merely “pledging”; the book is easily found at amazon.com.

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