On November 10, Judge David Counts of the Western District of Texas issued an opinion in United States v. Perez-Gallan holding unconstitutional 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), the federal ban on possessing a firearm while subject to a court order that “restrains [the possessor] from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner . . . or child . […]
In a six-page order issued on October 27, Judge Carlton Reeves of the Southern District of Mississippi directed the parties in a case challenging the constitutionality of the federal felon-in-possession ban to submit briefs on the issue of whether the court “should appoint a historian to serve as a consulting expert.” Judge Reeves noted that […]
On October 28, Delaware Governor John Carney vetoed a bill intended to allow individuals with a valid medical marijuana prescription to possess a gun under state law. The bill, H.B. 276, would have “ma[de] clear that an individual is not disqualified under Delaware law from possessing a firearm because the individual is a registered qualifying […]
In a September 19 decision in United States v. Quiroz, a judge in the Western District of Texas struck down the federal law barring those under indictment for a felony offense from receiving firearms, finding that the ban “departs from this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” One notable aspect of the decision is its […]
There are several extremely worrying trends from what I’ve seen in the still nascent post-Bruen Second Amendment case law. These concerns don’t arise from disagreement with constitutional originalism or with the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Second Amendment. They are concerns about lower courts’ capacity (and perhaps willingness) to apply a historical method in a […]
As litigators and judges grapple with Bruen’s historical tradition test, one issue that is sure to surface repeatedly is the status of group prohibitions on gun possession. Notably absent from the list of “presumptively lawful” restrictions in Heller is the federal prohibition on gun possession by those convicted of domestic-violence misdemeanor offenses, codified at 18 […]
In the aftermath of tragic mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York, a bipartisan committee introduced the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act” (or BSCA) in the Senate on Tuesday, June 21. By week’s end, the bill had passed the Senate. The House of Representatives followed suit on Friday, and the bill was signed into […]
Last month, in Juzumas v. Nassau County, a Second Circuit panel ruled per curiam that New York’s statute governing licenses for firearm possession mandated that the defendant surrender his longarms once his pistol license was revoked. However, because the County policy purporting to implement this policy was unclear, the Court vacated the district court’s ruling […]
The Idaho Supreme Court recently held that the state could be held liable in a wrongful death action for negligently failing to add a name to the database used in gun purchase background checks. In Von Lossberg v. State, the parents of a young man who committed suicide with a gun sued the state, the […]
On May 23, in United States v. Jimenez-Shilon, the 11th Circuit rejected a Second Amendment challenge to 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(5)(A), which prohibits firearm use or possession by any “alien” who is “illegally or unlawfully in the United States.” The holding itself is in some ways unremarkable – it joins every other federal circuit court […]
Earlier this week, in United States v. Jimenez-Shilon, the Eleventh Circuit rejected a Second Amendment challenge to the federal law barring undocumented immigrants from possessing firearms. Dru Stevenson will be guest posting about the case on this blog. But I want to highlight a few aspects of Judge Newsom’s majority and separate concurring opinions—and compare […]
Katrina Brees Tells Her Mother’s Story I know my mom didn’t shoot herself because she wanted to be dead. She did it because she was in unbearable pain and in the throes of a psychiatric episode. My mom, Donna Nathan, loved her life. She loved to dance to Cajun music and The Beatles. She’d grab […]
Last week, in Jones v. Bonta, a split panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled that California’s restriction on rifle purchases by 18- to 20-year olds violates the Second Amendment. The case is a major victory for gun-rights proponents, but that victory is likely to be short-lived. The en banc Ninth Circuit tends to reverse panels […]
There’s been a spate of new Second Amendment scholarship, including a just published piece by the Center’s own Joseph Blocher (with co-author Eric Ruben). There are also a couple of wide-ranging student pieces skeptical about/supportive of different gun regulations. Eric Ruben & Joseph Blocher, “Second-Class” Rhetoric, Ideology, and Doctrinal Change, 110 Geo. L.J. 613 (2022) […]
We’ve written a number of times about the Supreme Court’s 2019 decision in Rehaif v. United States and its aftermath. That decision requires the government to prove, in order to secure a conviction for unlawfully possessing firearms, that the defendant knew he belonged to the category of persons who is prohibited from possessing firearms. A […]
Introduction Justifiably, there has been considerable attention and focus by the public, scholars, policy makers, and criminal justice and public health practitioners on violent crimes involving firearms. However, much less attention has been paid to the crime of illegal possession of firearms. Part of this reflects dramatically different definitions of this behavior across the states […]
The relationship between citizenship and gun rights continues to vex federal courts.[1] In turn, the answer to whether gun rights are citizen-only rights implicates other core constitutional protections. Accordingly, courts and commentators must critically re-examine the alarming judicial trend towards excluding noncitizens from the ambit of the Second Amendment. The Court’s 2008 District of Columbia […]
The RAND Corporation just released a new report, The Magnitude and Sources of Disagreement Among Gun Policy Experts. Both Center faculty co-directors, Joseph Blocher and Darrell Miller, participated as experts. The Report’s key findings include: (1) experts were divided on whether they favored more permissive or less permissive policies, with sharp differences on select laws […]
Here are some new and interesting firearms law and adjacent pieces of scholarship published recently, including some really insightful student notes and an especially timely and in-depth look at the bump stock ban. Mia Romano & Dru Stevenson, Litigating the Bump-Stock Ban, 70 U. Kan. L. Rev. 243, (2021) From the Introduction: If a law […]
In the recent case Range v. Lombardo, a federal district court in Pennsylvania rejected an as-applied Second Amendment challenge to the federal felon-in-possession statute, 18 U.S.C. §922(g)(1). The case is significant for understanding the Third Circuit’s evolving approach to Second Amendment challenges; it also highlights the conceptual quagmire of applying Second Amendment protections (or not […]
The Quinnipiac Law Review recently published a series of essays from a symposium discussion of Ian Ayres and Frederisk Vars’ recent book, Weapon of Choice: Fighting Gun Violence While Respecting Gun Rights. I wasn’t able to find publicly accessible copies, but some excerpts are below (including from our own Joseph Blocher). Joseph Blocher, Two Concepts of […]
The past few weeks have led to a host of new scholarship, including ones that centrally focus on issues of who the Second Amendment protects. Ben Ramberg, Prior Involuntary Institutionalization Does Not Justify a Lifetime Second Amendment Ban: An Originalist Approach to 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(4), Kansas Journal of Law & Pubic Policy, 2021 Forthcoming Abstract: […]
Earlier this summer, in United States v. Perez, a divided panel of the Second Circuit rejected a challenge to 922(g)(5)—the federal law prohibiting gun possession by undocumented immigrants. I missed the case at the time, but Law360 has an interesting write up on the decision and how it fits into broader litigation regarding immigrants’ gun […]
Friend of the blog (and occasional guest blogger) Dru Stevenson has posted a new article on SSRN, “In Defense of Felon-in-Possession Laws,” forthcoming in the Cardozo Law Review. In an era where the felon prohibitor is under attack from both the left (mainly on policy grounds) and the right (mainly on constitutional grounds, at least […]
Under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), most individuals with a criminal conviction that carries a potential term of imprisonment of more than one year are barred from possessing firearms. But there are two fairly large caveats (and a few smaller ones I’ll ignore in this post), one constitutional and one statutory. First, many courts are now […]
