Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston. See profile: https://www.stcl.edu/about-us/faculty/dru-stevenson/
Ian Ayres and Frederick Vars, Weapon of Choice (Harvard Univ. Press, 2020) Ian Ayres and Fred Vars set forth several innovative proposals for firearms regulation in their 2020 book Weapon of Choice. The first part of the book sets forth and expands upon the authors’ proposals for “Libertarian Gun Control,” i.e., self-imposed legal restrictions on […]
In its June 14 decision in Greer v. United States, the Supreme Court addressed the mens rea requirement for the federal felon-in-possession law at 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) (also called the “felon prohibitor”). (The Court consolidated the Greer case with a similar case, Gary v. United States, on appeal from another Circuit). This opinion was […]
In a break with other circuits, on March 25 the Sixth Circuit issued a decision in Gun Owners of America v. Garland, holding that the ATF’s 2019 ban on bump stocks is invalid. Previously, the DC Circuit and the Tenth Circuit have upheld the ban (more precisely, have rejected preliminary injunctions with opinions that effectively […]
In late February 2021, the American Bar Association adopted Resolution 21M111, “Opposition to Guns In Polling Places,” which is short enough to insert as a single block quote: RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association urges federal, state, local, territorial, and tribal governments to enact statutes, rules and regulations to prohibit the possession and display of […]
In the last few weeks, we have had two new decisions in the litigation surrounding the ATF’s 2019 ban on bump stocks – a Feb. 23 decision granting the ATF’s summary judgment motions in the Guedes case in the D.C. district court, and a March 5 order by the Tenth Circuit in the Aposhian case […]
In twenty-two states, ATF allows licensed firearm dealers (FFL’s) to accept a state concealed carry license or permit (in Michigan, the terminology is Concealed Pistol License, or CPL) in lieu of a federal background check, because those states have concealed carry permit requirements at least as stringent as the federal background check requirements (see the […]
Is “text, history, and tradition” (THT) an example of what linguists would call a “hendriatris,” referring to a single jurisprudential/decisional approach, or do each of the three words have semantic significance?
In my forthcoming article, The Complex Interplay Between the Controlled Substances Act and the Gun Control Act, I focus on 18 U.S.C. §922(g)(3), which in its current form incorporates the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) by reference and thereby prohibits violators of the CSA from possessing a firearm. This statutory intersection currently results in more than […]
ATF Guidance Documents and Enforcement In September 2011, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives released an Open Letter to All Federal Firearms Licensees (FFL’s), providing regulatory guidance as to the intent of 18 U.S.C. §922(g)(3) and its interaction with state laws that legalize marijuana in some way. The guidance document reminds FFL’s that […]
A pair of recent reports address the number of firearms being manufactured and already in circulation: one from the ATF (a 2019 AFME report/update on manufactured, imported, and exported guns for 2017), which, along with previous ATF annual reports, furnished part of the basis for an industry annual report published by the National Shooting Sports […]
