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Scholarship Highlight

  • Date:
  • February 18, 2022

Several new or forthcoming firearms law articles are now available:

  • Ann E. Tweedy, Tribes, Firearm Regulation, and the Public Square, UC Davis Law Review, Vol. 55, 2022

Abstract:

This paper explores tribal policies towards firearm regulation through four different lenses. First, tribal participation in recent state and federal legislative debates regarding firearm regulation is explored. Second, the essay examines ways that Native Americans continue to be harmed by notions of savagery, including through high rates of victimization of violent crime and high rates of police killings. Third, it explores the historical importance of firearms for many tribal cultures. Finally, tribal firearm regulations are examined, specifically in the context of laws regulating the ability to bring firearms into sensitive spaces and those relating to use of firearms in a threatening manner.

  • Andres Paciuc, Personalized Smart Guns: A Futuristic Dream or A Pragmatic Solution?, Duke L. & Tech. Rev., January 9 2022

From the Introduction (footnotes omitted):

After horrific mass shootings such as those that occurred in Sandy Hook, Las Vegas, and Orlando, both sides of the political aisle immediately debate heated topics like banning assault weapons and high capacity magazines. This Note, however, will focus on a largely ignored alternative to the predictable and oftentimes unproductive back and forth that is endemic to the national gun debate. Personalized smart guns--firearms equipped with safety technology allowing only authorized users to fire them--represent a novel, useful, and constitutional intervention in the gun debate.

This Note will explore the constitutional and practical viability of a smart gun mandate as a means to reduce certain kinds of firearm-related deaths such as those caused by suicide and accidental firearm discharges. While other legal articles have been written about smart guns, this Note distinguishes itself from prior literature by extensively delving into the empirical data regarding both the firearm-related deaths that could be prevented by smart guns and the likelihood that a smart gun mandate would pass constitutional muster. Part I will provide background on Second Amendment legal doctrine. Part II will explore the smart gun technology itself, covering the main types of personalized smart guns to later highlight how the reliability of the technology plays into the constitutional viability of a smart gun mandate. Part III will then assess whether smart guns are effective in mitigating firearm-related deaths. Part IV will analyze the constitutionality of a smart gun mandate. Part V will examine the practical roadblocks that may impede smart gun legislation and funding. The Note concludes that smart guns themselves are constitutional and would reduce certain types of gun deaths. Further, although the roadblocks to smart gun implementation on a mass scale are quite burdensome, they are not insurmountable.

  • Constitutional Law-Second Amendment-Second Circuit Rules Prohibition of Firearms Possession by Undocumented Immigrants Passes Intermediate Scrutiny.-United States v. Perez, 6 F.4th 448 (2d Cir. 2021), 135 Harv. L. Rev. 1156 (2022)