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SCOTUS Gun Watch – Week of 12/4/23

Posted by on December 4, 2023

The Court isn’t set to issue an orders list this morning; rather, the final list of the calendar year will come next Monday, December 11.  The major case to watch from a Second Amendment perspective is Range, which was mentioned at the Rahimi oral argument and is clearly on the minds of some justices.  On November […]

Litigation Highlight: Sixth Circuit Hears Oral Argument in Shooting Range Zoning Challenge

Posted by on December 1, 2023

This guest post does not necessarily represent the views of the Duke Center for Firearms Law. In the past year, federal district courts across America have seen Bruen-fueled challenges to all manner of gun regulation. Whether the topic is a firearm insurance mandate, an administrative rule reclassifying certain pistols as rifles, or restrictions on carrying […]

Rahimi and the Original Scope of the Commerce Clause

Posted by on November 29, 2023

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 […]

SCOTUS Gun Watch – Week of 11/20/23

Posted by on November 20, 2023

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 […]

SCOTUS Gun Watch – Week of 11/6/23

Posted by on November 6, 2023

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 […]

Gun Rights and Domestic Violence in Rahimi—Whose Traditions Does the Second Amendment Protect?

Posted by and on November 3, 2023

[This post previously ran as a guest post on the Balkanization blog here.] Since 1994, persons subjected by courts to qualifying domestic violence restraining orders have been prohibited from possessing a firearm under 18 U.S.C. § 922 (g)(8). In United States v. Rahimi, the Fifth Circuit declared that prohibition unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. On […]

California’s New Excise Tax on Guns & Ammunition

Posted by on October 27, 2023

This guest post does not necessarily represent the views of the Duke Center for Firearms Law. On September 7, the California legislature passed AB 28, which creates an 11% state excise tax on all guns, ammunition, and gun parts sold by licensed gun dealers in the state. (An excise tax is like a sales tax […]

Litigation Highlight: Federal Judge Enjoins Pistol Brace Rule and Finds Irreparable Harm based on Likely Second Amendment Violation

Posted by on October 25, 2023

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.  […]

Scholarship Highlight: Common Good Gun Rights, Assault Weapon Bans, and Time & Second Amendment Law

Posted by on October 6, 2023

[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 […]

Repository Highlight: 19th-Century Firearm Laws Penalizing the Refusal to Arrest

Posted by on September 29, 2023

As the manager of the Repository of Historical Gun Laws at the Duke Center for Firearms Law, I spend a great deal of my time searching for and reviewing historical firearm regulations. Occasionally, during this research, I serendipitously come across unusual, intriguing, or enlightening laws. This post is the first in what will be an […]

SCOTUS Gun Watch – Week of 9/25/23

Posted by on September 25, 2023

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 […]

Still a Hollow Hope: State Political Power and the Second Amendment – Part II

Posted by on September 15, 2023

This guest post does not necessarily represent the views of the Duke Center for Firearms Law. In my last post, summarizing the findings of Still a Hollow Hope, I detailed how, due to constraints including the limited nature of constitutional rights, a lack of judicial independence, and the judiciary’s lack of power to implement its […]

Still a Hollow Hope: State Political Power and the Second Amendment – Part I

Posted by on September 13, 2023

This guest post does not necessarily represent the views of the Duke Center for Firearms Law. As the author of Still a Hollow Hope: State Political Power and the Second Amendment, I have been given the privilege of blogging on this site.  For my first couple of posts, I will give a bit of my […]

Litigation Highlight: Split Fifth Circuit Panel Renews Injunction Against ATF’s Stabilizing Brace Rule

Posted by on September 1, 2023

This guest post does not necessarily represent the views of the Duke Center for Firearms Law. On August 1, a split Fifth Circuit panel issued a decision in Mock v. Garland that breathed new life into an emergency injunction previously granted against ATF’s recent rule on stabilizing pistol braces. (I previously blogged about the early […]

The Sounds of Silence: An Examination of Local Legal Records Reveals Robust Historical Regulation of the Public Peace

Posted by and on August 18, 2023

This guest post does not necessarily represent the views of the Duke Center for Firearms Law. Many legal scholars and most courts implementing Bruen’s framework have approached early American law as if the statutory record constitutes the sum total of the founding era’s legal traditions.  Given that presumption, silences in the statutes become evidence of […]

Litigation Highlight: Federal Judge Grants Motion to Dismiss Claims Challenging San Jose Gun Insurance and Fee Requirements

Posted by on August 16, 2023

In August 2022, shortly after Bruen was decided, Judge Beth Labson Freeman of the Northern District of California denied a motion for a preliminary injunction of a San Jose ordinance that requires gun owners to maintain firearm liability insurance and pay an annual gun harm reduction fee.  Jake covered that decision here, including how the […]

SCOTUS Gun Watch – Week of 8/14/23

Posted by on August 14, 2023

The major development last week at the Supreme Court was the Court’s text order on August 8 granting the government’s emergency docket application for a stay in Garland v. Vanderstok.  A district court judge had entered judgment striking down ATF’s rule classifying certain gun component parts as “firearms” under the GCA on administrative law grounds […]

Gunowner Privacy and the Second Amendment

Posted by on August 11, 2023

[This is a guest post based on a paper that was presented at the 2023 Firearms Law Works-In-Progress Workshop.  The Workshop is held each year on a home-and-away basis with the University of Wyoming Firearms Research Center.  This post does not necessarily represent the views of the Duke Center for Firearms Law.]  In dueling cases in state and federal […]

Taking Aim at New York’s Concealed Carry Improvement Act

Posted by on August 7, 2023

[This is a guest post based on a paper that was presented at the 2023 Firearms Law Works-In-Progress Workshop.  The Workshop is held each year on a home-and-away basis with the University of Wyoming Firearms Research Center.  This post does not necessarily represent the views of the Duke Center for Firearms Law.]  Since its enactment in […]

The Gun Industry and the New Anti-Boycott Laws

Posted by on August 4, 2023

[This is a guest post based on a paper that was presented at the 2023 Firearms Law Works-In-Progress Workshop.  The Workshop is held each year on a home-and-away basis with the University of Wyoming Firearms Research Center.  This post does not necessarily represent the views of the Duke Center for Firearms Law.]  It was a great […]

SCOTUS Gun Watch – Week of 7/31/23

Posted by on July 31, 2023

There’s no update yet on the oral argument date in Rahimi, although I suspect that information may be coming within the next few weeks. On July 27, the government made an emergency application to the Court in Garland v. Vanderstok.  Judge Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas issued an order in the case on […]

Weapons and the Peace

Posted by on July 25, 2023

[This is a guest post that is part of a mini-series on the history of firearms and gun regulation in early America.] When reconstructing the legal order of the early republic, the inclination is to start where we are now and then move backward along a straight line.  Because statutes and appellate decisions at the […]

Litigation Highlight: Split Sixth Circuit Panel Allows Retaliation Claim based on Zoom Rifle Display to Proceed

Posted by on July 21, 2023

The Sixth Circuit recently cleared the way for a district court case that will address the complicated interplay of gun displays, online speech, and qualified immunity. On January 20, 2021, the Grand Traverse County (Michigan) Board of Commissioners held a public meeting over Zoom where the Commissioners, including Ron Clous, were visible on video. During […]

Scholarship Highlight: Federal Firearms Crimes, Product Safety Regulations and the Quaker Role in Second Amendment Debates

Posted by on June 1, 2023

In a new article that is forthcoming in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, Brandon Beck seeks “to create a holistic framework for thinking about the modern federal approach to firearms by situating it, historically and conceptually, as a fundamentally distinct era within the larger story of federal firearms criminalization.”  Beck separates the […]

The History of North Carolina’s 1879 Concealed Carry Ban: Part II

Posted by on May 26, 2023

This is Part Two in a two-part series on the history of North Carolina’s 1879 concealed carry law.  Part One summarized the historical context and legislative record surrounding the law.  Part Two will address how the law was enforced in one North Carolina county in the decades after it was enacted.   Enforcement of the 1879 […]