In The Gunning of America, Pamela Haag challenged the idea that “guns are part of the American identity,” and argued that in the United States, “the gun culture was forged in the image of commerce. . . it was etched strongly by the character, ambition, and will of gun capitalists rather than by diplomats, politicians, […]
In Heller II, the D.C. Circuit claimed that long gun registration requirements are novel, not historic. Heller III reiterated this line, stating that the registration requirement for long guns lacks the “historical pedigree” of the registration requirement for handguns. But is this entirely right? Historical American firearm registration laws suggest that long gun registration is […]
The historical record suggests: Maybe not.
An enjoyable feature of teaching Second Amendment is the flexibility and variety of possible approaches. A professor can use a wide variety of materials, depending on learning objectives. Social science, current policy debates, and political philosophy are easily included, if one wants. I use our textbook Firearms Law and the Second Amendment. It aims to […]
Alexander Gouzoules has posted on SSRN an interesting new piece, “The Diverging Right(s) to Bear Arms: Private Armament and the Second and Fourteenth Amendments in Historical Context,” which was just published in the Alabama Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Law Review. It is well worth a read for anyone interested in historical understandings of the […]
[Ed. Note: As we discussed here, this post is part of a three-part series on gun laws in the Center’s Repository of Historical Gun Laws, written by Center research assistant Catie Carberry. This post, like the Repository, is exemplary and not exhaustive.] Felons Were bans on convicts possessing firearms “unknown before World War I?”
[Ed. Note: As we discussed here, this post is part of a three-part series on gun laws in the Center’s Repository of Historical Gun Laws, written by Center research assistant Catie Carberry. This post, like the Repository, is exemplary and not exhaustive.] Who was disarmed at the time of the founding?
[Ed. Note: As we discussed here, this post is part of a three-part series on gun laws in the Center’s Repository of Historical Gun Laws, written by Center research assistant Catie Carberry. This post, like the Repository, is exemplary and not exhaustive.] Are laws banning aliens from keeping guns a “post-World War I phenomenon?”
This week, we’re fortunate to have a three-part series by one of the Center’s excellent summer research assistants, Catie Carberry. Catie’s posts will provide an overview of the historical gun laws in the Center’s Repository of Historical Gun Laws, the largest publicly available single-site compilation of historical regulations of firearms. The Repository is the result […]
On Thursday, in American Legion v. American Humanist Association, the Supreme Court held that a Latin cross installed over ninety years ago on public land to commemorate fallen World War I soldiers did not violate the Establishment Clause. In doing so, Justice Alito, writing for the plurality, shied away from the much-criticized Lemon test and […]
