On November 3, 2023, the Center co-hosted a symposium at Notre Dame Law School in partnership with the Notre Dame Law Review on the theme of History, Tradition, and Analogical Reasoning. The symposium brought together leading legal scholars, historians and practitioners to discuss pressing questions surrounding Bruen’s historical-analogical test. Symposium participants presented on topics ranging […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
There’s not much activity to report on this week due to the holiday. The Range petition, which was distributed for consideration at the November 17 conference, appears to still be under review and the Court is not expected to issue an orders list this morning. In Daniels (an as-applied challenge to the federal ban on gun possession by […]
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 […]
[The scholarship highlighted in this post does not necessarily represent the views of the Duke Center for Firearms Law.] On November 3, the Center for Firearms Law hosted its annual law review symposium at Notre Dame Law School in partnership with Notre Dame Law Review on the topic of History, Tradition, and Analogical Reasoning. The […]
Much of post-Bruen Second Amendment litigation has focused on the federal status-based prohibitions contained in 18 U.S.C. § 922. Jake Charles, for example, has found that more than 40% of federal court Second Amendment challenges in the one year following the Bruen decision were to the federal felon-in-possession law, 922(g)(1), and that more than 60% […]
The transcript of the Rahimi oral argument is now available here. Notably, in an exchange with the Solicitor General, Justice Barrett referenced the Range case by name–suggesting that the issue presented there would be “saved” for future consideration rather than resolved in Rahimi. The government’s petition for review in Range is distributed for the Court’s November 17 […]
The oral argument in United States v. Rahimi clarified the fronts on which future Second Amendment battles will likely take place. Solicitor General Prelogar was a terrifically clear and compelling advocate and she advanced three ways the Court could provide guidance on Bruen’s standard: (1) clarify that all historical evidence shedding light on legislative authority […]
The Supreme Court heard oral argument yesterday morning in United States v. Rahimi, a Second Amendment challenge to the federal ban on gun possession for those subject to certain state-issued domestic violence restraining orders. The oral argument audio is available here, and the transcript can be accessed here. We previously covered the Fifth Circuit’s decision […]
As has been discussed on the blog in recent months, many questions about Bruen’s application and scope remain unanswered. United States v. Rahimi represents the first opportunity for the Supreme Court to clarify the details of how Bruen’s test should be applied and to begin sorting out the disparate outcomes that have already emerged at […]
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 […]
[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 […]
In a previous post, I explored the Supreme Court’s doctrine concerning facial constitutional challenges and its bearing on the Rahimi case. This post further unpacks how the arguments apply to the arguments made by Rahimi and his amici and the potential for exceptions to the Salerno standard in Second Amendment law. In the Supreme […]
There seems to me an unexplained oddity in the Supreme Court’s upcoming case of United States v. Rahimi. The case focuses on the facial validity of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), which bars gun possession for individuals subject to certain kinds of domestic violence restraining orders. But, as applied to Zackey Rahimi, the statute should be […]
The government filed its reply brief in Rahimi on October 25. The government argues that Bruen “incorporated the ‘law-abiding, responsible citizen’ principle into its analytical framework,” and that the phrase is not mere dicta or gloss. The government also contends that Bruen contemplates consulting a wide variety of historical sources apart from enacted regulations and argues against “artificial […]
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 […]
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. […]
In Rahimi, the government’s reply brief is due this Friday, October 27. A response was filed to the government’s cert petition in Range on October 18. In his brief, Range argues that his case and Rahimi present “complementary and important [issues], and it would be beneficial for the Court’s decision making to consider both during the same […]
This guest post does not necessarily represent the views of the Duke Center for Firearms Law. On November 7, 2023, the Supreme Court will hear argument in United States v. Rahimi, addressing the Second Amendment constitutionality of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8) — the federal firearm ban that covers persons subject to disqualifying protection orders. Andrew’s […]
On September 28, Judge George Russell of the District of Maryland issued a decision in Kipke v. Moore preliminarily enjoining certain locational gun restrictions in Maryland while upholding others under Bruen. The decision is the latest in a series of legal challenges to expansive state sensitive-places laws passed in the aftermath of Bruen—New York, New […]
Vullo was redistributed for consideration at last Friday’s conference, but the Court did not issue an order in the case this morning. In Rahimi, Rahimi’s attorneys filed a “proposal to lodge” with the Court on October 6. No further information is available on the Supreme Court docket, but the request likely relates to non-record information or […]
The Supreme Court will hear oral argument in United States v. Rahimi, its first post-Bruen Second Amendment case, on November 7. This post will consider an issue raised in the respondent’s merits brief filed with the Supreme Court on September 27: whether and when necessity is a defense to a charge of possessing a firearm […]
We are very excited to announce that the Duke Center for Firearms Law will co-host a symposium at Notre Dame Law School on Friday, November 3 in coordination with the Notre Dame Law Review! The theme of the symposium is History, Tradition, and Analogical Reasoning. The majority opinion in Bruen uses versions of the word […]
