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 […]
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 […]
Contemporary debates over gun policy often occur in the shadow of history. As we previously described, the recent debate in the North Carolina legislature over whether to repeal the state’s 1919 law requiring a state-issued permit to purchase a handgun was framed by competing claims about why that law was originally enacted. Those who supported […]
This highlight focuses on recently-published pieces of law student scholarship. With the end of the academic year, we are going to run a short series highlighting new student notes on firearms-related topics. First, a note by rising third-year student Morgan Band in the Fordham Law Review evaluates the “Concealed Carry Improvement Act” that New York passed shortly […]
On April 28, a judge in the Southern District of Illinois issued a decision in Barnett v. Raoul granting a preliminary injunction of Illinois’ ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines (LCMs) enacted earlier this year—the Protect Illinois Communities Act, or PICA.[1] Two federal judges in the Northern District of Illinois had previously denied motions […]
In just over ten months since Bruen was decided last June, there has been significant movement on gun regulation at the state level. On the surface, these developments aren’t all that surprising because they generally track what one would expect given the partisan balance in each state legislature: red states have tended to roll back […]
On April 6, the federal government filed a petition for certiorari in Cargill v. Garland. In January, an en banc Fifth Circuit struck down the Trump-era ATF rule prohibiting bump-stock devices after finding that ATF lacked statutory authorization to ban bump stocks because “a bump stock is excluded from the technical definition of ‘machinegun’ set […]
On March 20, a judge in the Central District of California granted a motion to preliminary enjoin a California law requiring that handguns have certain features before becoming eligible for the roster of handguns permitted to be sold in the state. The plaintiffs in Boland v. Bonta challenged three specific provisions of California’s Unsafe Handgun […]
The Supreme Court’s 1984 decision in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. NRDC, Inc. signaled an expanded role for federal agency regulation by generally requiring courts to defer to an agency’s interpretation of an ambiguous federal statute and allowing the executive branch to “make [] policy choices—resolving the competing interests which Congress itself either inadvertently did not […]
In January of this year, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) published Final Rule 2021R-08F, “Factoring Criteria for Firearms with Attached ‘Stabilizing Braces.’” The new rule changes the operative definition of “rifle” in the Code of Federal Regulations such that most pistols with attached stabilizing braces (often called “pistol braces”) will now […]
An effort is currently underway in North Carolina to repeal the state’s requirement that anyone seeking to purchase a handgun first receive a permit from the local sheriff. The bill passed the house in late February and is on its way to the state senate, but the real question is whether it will garner a […]
Today’s post highlights two new pieces of firearms law scholarship. First, in a new article forthcoming in the Florida Law Review, Hillel Levin and Timothy Lytton argue that gun industry regulation under PLCAA must accommodate principles of federalism and separation of powers by preserving state autonomy in regulatory choices. Second, former Center research assistant Noah […]
As Andrew Willinger wrote here recently, in December a federal district court in Indiana rejected a challenge to the federal law, 18 U.S.C. § 922(k), that criminalizes possession of a firearm with the factory-embossed or engraved serial number removed or altered. As Andrew explained, what is particularly noteworthy about the opinion is its rigorous approach […]
This post is part of a mini-symposium on “Private Property and the Second Amendment,” which includes Jake Charles’ post Bruen, Private Property & the Second Amendment, and Robert Leider’s post Pretextually Eliminating the Right to Bear Arms through Gerrymandered Property Rules. Stay tuned for additional response posts that will run on the blog in the […]
In a new article forthcoming in the North Carolina Law Review, Cynthia Lee surveys the current state of the “initial aggressor” doctrine–under which an individual who initiates a violent confrontation loses the right to claim that he or she acted in self defense–and proposes several changes to the doctrine to discourage gun violence and ensure that […]
This is a guest post that is part of a mini-symposium on “Private Property and the Second Amendment,” responding to Jake Charles’ earlier post Bruen, Private Property & the Second Amendment. Stay tuned for additional response posts that will run on the blog in the coming weeks. When the Supreme Court required public school desegregation […]
On December 6, a federal judge in the District of Oregon denied a motion for a TRO and preliminary injunction of Oregon’s Ballot Measure 114, a ballot initiative that narrowly passed in the November election. Measure 114 enacts a permit-to-purchase requirement, mandates safety training, fingerprinting, and a criminal background check to obtain a gun permit, […]
On December 1, Judge Roger Benitez[1] of the Southern District of California ruled in Miller v. Bonta that a challenge by gun dealers and gun-rights advocacy groups to the fee-shifting provision in California’s new firearms law is not moot, and permitted the lawsuit to proceed. California passed S.B. 1327 on July 22. The law is […]
On June 29, only six days after the Supreme Court struck down a New York law requiring gun owners to show a special need to carry concealed handguns in public, New York officials filed two civil lawsuits against manufacturers of so-called “ghost guns.” The first lawsuit was filed by the state attorney general, Letitia James, […]
In the same vein as our SCOTUS Gun Watch reports, this post summarizes the results of two major gun-related initiatives that were on the ballot in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Iowa Amendment No. 1 Iowa voters considered a ballot initiative that would add the following provision to the state constitution: The right of the people to […]
On July 29, the House of Representatives passed the Assault Weapon Ban of 2022 (HR 1808). The bill would prohibit the sale, import, or possession of new “assault weapons” and large capacity magazines, as defined in the bill. The definition section includes not only features or components that bring a weapon under the ban, but […]
[This is a guest post based on a paper that was presented at the Center’s 2022 Firearms Law Works-In-Progress Workshop.] Initially, this paper started as a primarily empirical study of the relationship between waiting period restrictions and some outcome variables of interest like per capita suicide and homicide rates. Many states that have a waiting […]
After the frenzied activity of the past few weeks, the Supreme Court in now in summer recess. We’ll be doing these posts every other week, instead of every week, through the summer. We’re keeping an eye out for any major developments in the four cases that the Court GVR’ed following Bruen: Association of New Jersey […]
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 […]
When gun manufacturers or dealers face civil liability for misuse of firearms, the liability costs eventually shift to investors (shareholders or owners), liability insurers, commercial lenders, or creditors (the debts they own now carry more risk), and indirectly to future customers, who may face price increases. Financial institutions (which I will call “banks,” though this […]
