This is the fifth entry in our ongoing series summarizing new legal scholarship regarding the Bruen decision (see the earlier highlights here, here, here, and here). In a paper recently published in the Pepperdine Law Review, Michael Smith and Alexander Hiland draw a connection between Justice Clarence Thomas’ call to revisit the Supreme Court’s 1964 […]
Today’s post highlights two new pieces of firearms-related scholarship. First, in an upcoming article in the Administrative Law Review, Dru Stevenson critically examines the link between Operation Choke Point and gun-industry antiboycott laws. Second, a forthcoming piece by Mugambi Jouet in the Arizona State Law Journal proposes avenues for possible bipartisan cooperation to address the […]
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 […]
NOTE: Portions of this blog post are reformulations of my Master’s Thesis “Picking Up The Gun” completed for the M.St. in U.S. History at the University of Oxford in 2015. [This is a guest post based on a paper that was presented at the Center’s 2022 Firearms Law Works-In-Progress Workshop.] The Supreme Court in Bruen […]
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 […]
I. Introduction Recently, there have been several high-profile trials that underscore the intersection of guns and race in America. In Georgia, Greg and Travis McMichael (father and son), and William “Roddie” Bryant, stood trial for fatally shooting Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man whose race seemed to be the only provocation the three white men needed […]
The claim that all gun control is inherently racist is relatively new. The claim grew to prominence in gun rights circles in the 1990s after Robert Cottrol and Raymond Diamond published their seminal 1991 article “The Second Amendment: Toward an Afro-Americanist Reconsideration.” That same year National Rifle Association (NRA) assistant counsel Stefan B. Tahmassebi proclaimed […]
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 […]
In 2012, I published an article examining the interplay between Indians (Indigenous Americans) and guns.[1] That article traced the relationship between Indians – individually and as members of Native Nations – and firearms, stretching from the earliest days of contact between Natives and colonizers, up to present day. The complex historical and legal dynamics discussed […]
Forty-four reasons come to mind Why a motherfuckin’ brother is hard to find He been walkin’ on the streets and fuckin’ with mine Stupid punk can’t fuck with a mastermind See, I never take a step on a Compton block Or L.A. without the AK ready to pop ‘Cause them punk motherfuckers in black and […]
The theory of interest convergence, articulated first by Professor Derrick Bell in a Harvard Law Review article, states that “the interests of blacks in achieving racial equality will be accommodated only when it converges with the interests of whites.”[1] Using the landmark school desegregation case of Brown v. Board of Education[2] as an example, Bell […]
Racial justice has become a pawn in Second Amendment litigation. In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, both petitioners and respondents raised the racialized history of gun regulation to support their positions on the constitutionality of New York’s concealed carry licensing scheme. Moreover, groups from across the ideological spectrum filed amicus […]
We are excited to begin rolling out the essays from the Center’s recent roundtable on Race and Guns in America. The essays are impressively rich and thoughtful, offering various descriptions and diagnoses (and some prescriptions) for the persistent problems that arise in a country flooded with guns and saturated with systemic racism. Starting tomorrow, we […]
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 mid-November, the Center hosted a roundtable discussion on Race and Guns in America. The conversation addressed difficult and timely issues surrounding issues of policing, public carry, vigilante actors, and self-defense. In January, we will be publishing the essays from the participants that came out of the event. From the discussion, it is clear those essays […]
We are excited to announce our next symposium will be hosted at Harvard Law School on March 25, 2022 in coordination with the Harvard Law Review. The theme is Guns, Violence, and Democracy. The events of the past several years—including pandemic-produced uncertainty and economic instability, antiracism protests, and assaults on free and fair elections—have confirmed […]
The complex relationship between firearms regulation and racial politics during Reconstruction will likely figure in the upcoming Supreme Court case, NYSRPA v. Bruen. Gun rights advocates have leaned heavily into the argument that gun control is inherently racist and was inescapably tainted by this insidious motive during Reconstruction. Unfortunately, this claim rests on a combination […]
