blog/show

Scholarship Highlight Interview: George Mocsary on Firearms Law and the Second Amendment Casebook Online Chapters

  • Date:
  • August 5th, 2020

By: Jacob Charles

In the latest episode of the Scholarship Highlight interview series, I spoke with George Mocsary of University of Wyoming College of Law about his contributions to online chapters to the casebook Firearms Law and the Second Amendment: Regulation, Rights, and Policy. We talked about Chapter 14, on Comparative Law, and discussed the various ways other nations have protected rights to self-defense, rebellion against tyranny, and firearms.

Here’s an excerpt from the introduction on what the chapter covers (footnote omitted):

Online Chapter 13 covers International Law—that is, law, such as treaties, that applies among nations. This Chapter studies Comparative Law—comparing and contrasting the “domestic” (noninternational) gun laws of various nations and examining the possible effects of those different laws. Because international law is derived in part from the “norms” of civilized nations, the study of comparative law can yield useful insights for international law .

Part A covers national constitutions and reviews the following topics: (1) the three nations besides the United States that have an express constitutional right to arms; (2) constitutional guarantees of self-defense; (3) constitutional affirmations of the right and duty to resist tyranny or illegitimate government; (4) constitutional support for national liberation movements in other nations; (5) a short case study of Ghana and its constitutional duty of forcible resistance to usurpation of government; and (6) the constitutional right to security in the home.

Part B excerpts studies examining the consequences of varying rates of gun ownership among a large number of countries. . . .

Part C presents case studies of gun control and gun rights in several nations. . . .

Part D considers broad perspectives in the three different ways. First, an article by Professor Carlisle Moody investigates European homicide trends over the last 800 years, and observes that growing availability of firearms that could be kept always ready for self-defense (wheel locks and flintlocks) paralleled a sharp decline in homicides. [Second,] An essay by Professor Kopel compares and contrasts homicides in the United States and Europe during the twentieth century. . . . The third section of Part D investigates at length the largest mass homicide in history: the murders of over 86 million Chinese by the Mao Zedong dictatorship in 1949-76.

Here’s the interview:

https://youtu.be/44pRJq43FQY