On Monday, October 11 the UVM History department hosted the inaugural Histories of the Present: The David Haber and Robin Edelman Annual Lecture. Made possible by a generous gift, this series will invite one scholar to the UVM campus each year to provide a historian’s perspective on a pressing contemporary issue related to the United States or its relationship with the wider world. This year’s lecture was presented by Dr. Saul Cornell, the Paul and Diane Guenther Chair in American History at Fordham University. Cornell specializes in early American and legal/Constitutional history and has published a variety of books and articles on these topics.

Professor Cornell’s lecture, titled Race, Regulation, and Guns: The Latest Battleground in the Debate Over the Second Amendment, addressed the ongoing argument about gun rights and the Second Amendment in the United States. In his lecture, Cornell questioned the difference between modern gun ownership and militia gun use at the time of the nation’s founding. Over the course of his talk, he paid close attention to race, discussing the impact of slavery, the rise of Jim Crow laws, and the Civil Rights movement. He also traced the history of gun rights in American legal and political systems, examining Supreme Court decisions and modern-day legislation.

Professor Cornell left the audience with a thought-provoking message about the ways in which gun ownership and American perceptions of race have been closely linked for more than two centuries. In the end, he asked listeners to contemplate thought-provoking questions about next steps for gun legislation and the place of racial bias in American cultural and legal traditions.