Willinger is the Center’s Executive Director. He was previously a litigator at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler in New York, where he worked on complex commercial disputes and false advertising and defamation cases. Willinger was also a law clerk to Judge William L. Osteen, Jr. of the Middle District of North Carolina.
The amicus briefs filed in support of Rahimi at the Supreme Court include a wide variety of arguments against the constitutionality of the federal domestic violence restraining order ban in 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8)—some of which received substantial airtime during the oral argument earlier this month, and some of which did not. While many amici […]
There’s not much activity to report on this week due to the holiday. The Range petition, which was distributed for consideration at the November 17 conference, appears to still be under review and the Court is not expected to issue an orders list this morning. In Daniels (an as-applied challenge to the federal ban on gun possession by […]
The Court released an orders list this morning but there is no order yet in Range, which was considered at last Friday’s conference. The response in United States v. Daniels – an as-applied Second Amendment challenge to the federal ban on gun possession for unlawful users of controlled substances by a regular marijuana user – is […]
[The scholarship highlighted in this post does not necessarily represent the views of the Duke Center for Firearms Law.] On November 3, the Center for Firearms Law hosted its annual law review symposium at Notre Dame Law School in partnership with Notre Dame Law Review on the topic of History, Tradition, and Analogical Reasoning. The […]
Much of post-Bruen Second Amendment litigation has focused on the federal status-based prohibitions contained in 18 U.S.C. § 922. Jake Charles, for example, has found that more than 40% of federal court Second Amendment challenges in the one year following the Bruen decision were to the federal felon-in-possession law, 922(g)(1), and that more than 60% […]
The transcript of the Rahimi oral argument is now available here. Notably, in an exchange with the Solicitor General, Justice Barrett referenced the Range case by name–suggesting that the issue presented there would be “saved” for future consideration rather than resolved in Rahimi. The government’s petition for review in Range is distributed for the Court’s November 17 […]
The Supreme Court heard oral argument yesterday morning in United States v. Rahimi, a Second Amendment challenge to the federal ban on gun possession for those subject to certain state-issued domestic violence restraining orders. The oral argument audio is available here, and the transcript can be accessed here. We previously covered the Fifth Circuit’s decision […]
It was an especially busy day at the Supreme Court on Friday for gun-related cases. The Court granted certiorari in both Vullo (a First Amendment challenge to state business guidance urging certain corporations to consider the reputational risks of doing business with gun-rights organizations) and Cargill (which presents the question of whether ATF’s regulation of bump […]
The government filed its reply brief in Rahimi on October 25. The government argues that Bruen “incorporated the ‘law-abiding, responsible citizen’ principle into its analytical framework,” and that the phrase is not mere dicta or gloss. The government also contends that Bruen contemplates consulting a wide variety of historical sources apart from enacted regulations and argues against “artificial […]
On October 2, District Judge Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas granted a motion for preliminary injunction in Mock v. Garland. Judge O’Connor’s decision enjoined an ATF rule that subjects stabilizing braces to heightened regulation, including a registration requirement, under the National Firearms Act (NFA) by categorizing them as “short-barreled rifles,” or SBRs. […]
In Rahimi, the government’s reply brief is due this Friday, October 27. A response was filed to the government’s cert petition in Range on October 18. In his brief, Range argues that his case and Rahimi present “complementary and important [issues], and it would be beneficial for the Court’s decision making to consider both during the same […]
On September 28, Judge George Russell of the District of Maryland issued a decision in Kipke v. Moore preliminarily enjoining certain locational gun restrictions in Maryland while upholding others under Bruen. The decision is the latest in a series of legal challenges to expansive state sensitive-places laws passed in the aftermath of Bruen—New York, New […]
Vullo was redistributed for consideration at last Friday’s conference, but the Court did not issue an order in the case this morning. In Rahimi, Rahimi’s attorneys filed a “proposal to lodge” with the Court on October 6. No further information is available on the Supreme Court docket, but the request likely relates to non-record information or […]
The Supreme Court will hear oral argument in United States v. Rahimi, its first post-Bruen Second Amendment case, on November 7. This post will consider an issue raised in the respondent’s merits brief filed with the Supreme Court on September 27: whether and when necessity is a defense to a charge of possessing a firearm […]
We are very excited to announce that the Duke Center for Firearms Law will co-host a symposium at Notre Dame Law School on Friday, November 3 in coordination with the Notre Dame Law Review! The theme of the symposium is History, Tradition, and Analogical Reasoning. The majority opinion in Bruen uses versions of the word […]
Between September 22 and October 4, 22 amicus briefs were filed in support of Rahimi at the Supreme Court. The organizations filing briefs include public defender groups, gun-rights organizations, empirical researchers, and conservative think tanks. While some briefs argue in favor of the Fifth Circuit’s historical analysis and determination that 922(g)(8) is inconsistent with America’s […]
[The scholarship highlighted in this post does not necessarily represent the views of the Duke Center for Firearms Law.] In a new article forthcoming in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Center co-director Darrell Miller evaluates gun rights under a theory of common good constitutionalism and concludes that “common good constitutionalism does provide […]
The respondent’s merits brief in Rahimi was filed on September 27. The brief argues that “[n]othing in the history of American firearm regulation remotely resembles § 922(g)(8)[’s]” ban on possessing firearms for the duration of a domestic violence restraining order. Rahimi asserts that domestic violence was not state-approved during the Founding Era, but that historical […]
On September 8, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham issued a Public Health Emergency Order that prohibits the carrying of firearms on public property in certain New Mexico counties. Governor Grisham’s order has already been challenged in court and enjoined by a federal judge. The order highlights the role of Western territorial restrictions under Bruen’s […]
As the November 7 oral argument in Rahimi approaches, the respondent’s brief is due on Wednesday, September 27. Any amicus briefs in support of the respondent are due one week later, on October 4. The Center for Prosecution Integrity filed a brief in support of the respondent ahead of schedule, on September 22. The Supreme […]
[The scholarship highlighted in this post does not necessarily represent the views of the Duke Center for Firearms Law.] Two new pieces of student legal scholarship are now posted examining aspects of the Bruen test. First, in a note forthcoming in the Yale Law Journal, Josh Hochman “survey[s] rules and regulations promulgated by railroad corporations […]
As described in a recent SCOTUS Gun Watch update, the government has sought and received an extension of the deadline to seek certiorari in Range v. Attorney General (the petition, should the government seek certiorari, is now due on October 5). While it’s not unusual based on past practice for a party to pursue, and […]
The Court has set oral argument in Rahimi for Tuesday, November 7. Rahimi is currently the only case set for argument that day, and the Court typically holds oral argument beginning at 10 am Eastern time. In Guedes, one of three pending petitions involving the ATF’s bump stock ban, the government filed its response on September 5. The […]
The scholarship highlighted in this post does not necessarily represent the views of the Duke Center for Firearms Law. In a new paper posted to SSRN and forthcoming in the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, Nicholas Goldrosen examines the connection between marijuana legalization and gun restrictions premised on drug use. Goldrosen performs an empirical […]
Earlier this summer, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in United States v. Rahimi, in which the Fifth Circuit invalidated the federal ban on those subject to certain domestic violence restraining orders (or DVROs) possessing firearms for the duration of the order. We previously covered the Fifth Circuit’s decision here and here. On August 14, the […]
