blog/show

Scholarship Highlight Interview: Sheila Simon on Second Amendment Sanctuaries

  • Date:
  • August 12th, 2020

By: Joseph Blocher

Sheila Simon, Assistant Professor of Law at Southern Illinois University School of Law, recently published a fascinating paper about gun sanctuary ordinances - On Target? Assessing Gun Sanctuary Ordinances that Conflict with State Law, 122 W. Va. L. Rev. 817 (2020) – which she was generous enough to discuss with me in our most recent scholarship highlight.

In addition to her academic work, Professor Simon has held a variety of positions in state and local government (she was Lt Governor of Illinois from 2011 to 2015), so she has an especially good professional and practical vantage point on the state-local dynamic in play here. And, as we discuss in the interview, Illinois is a particularly useful case study, given that the preemption movement and the gun sanctuary movement both kicked off there. The paper provides a nuanced look at the costs and benefits of sanctuary ordinances, and is well worth a close read.

And if you haven’t already, check out Darrell’s conversation with Shawn Fields on the same topic!

https://youtu.be/AA7t17oKF3c