Law Commons^™

Righteous Fury: A Natural Rights Approach To The Individual Right To Bear Arms Under The Ninth And Fourteenth Amendments, Nikhil Agarwal

CMC Senior Theses

The individual right to bear arms for self-defence has been grounded by the modern Supreme Court in the Second Amendment and incorporated against the States by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. However, a close examination of both the majority and dissenting opinions in each of the three landmark gun-rights cases decided by the Supreme Court this century- DC v. Heller, McDonald v. Chicago, and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen- reveal how difficult is to determine the original meaning of the Second Amendment, and expose weaknesses in the Court’s current substantive due process …

Securing Gun Rights By Statute: The Right To Keep And Bear Arms Outside The Constitution, Jacob D. Charles

Michigan Law Review

In popular and professional discourse, debate about the right to keep and bear arms most often revolves around the Second Amendment. But that narrow reference ignores a vast and expansive nonconstitutional legal regime privileging guns and their owners. This collection of nonconstitutional gun rights confers broad powers and immunities on gun owners that go far beyond those required by the Constitution, like rights to bring guns on private property against an owner’s wishes and to carry a concealed firearm in public with no training or background check. This Article catalogues this set of expansive laws and critically assesses them. Unlike …

Not A Suicide Pact: Urgent Strategic Recommendations For Reducing Domestic Terrorism In The United States, Barbara L. Mcquade

Articles

America’s Bill of Rights protects U.S. citizens’ rights to free speech, to bear arms, and to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, among other things. But, as the Supreme Court has consistently held, no right is absolute. All rights must be balanced against other societal needs, including and especially public safety. As the threat of domestic terrorism metastasizes in the United States, Americans need to use the practical wisdom that Justice Robert L. Jackson advised in 1949 to ensure the survival of the republic.

In recognition of this growing threat, the Biden administration issued the nation’s first National Strategy …

State V. Brown: How Limited A Right To Keep And Bear Arms?, June A. Jackson

Maine Law Review

Most state constitutions contain a clause guaranteeing a right to keep and bear arms. With gun control legislation on the rise, these state constitutional guarantees have come under increasing scrutiny. In State v. Brown defendant Edward Brown, a convicted felon, challenged the Maine statute that forbade him to possess firearms on the ground that it violated his state constitutional right to bear arms. Similar statutes around the country limit the right to bear arms in various ways. Case law has tended to uphold these limitations and to establish that the right to bear arms is a limited right at best. …

"Good Reason" Laws Under The Gun: May-Issue States And The Right To Bear Arms, Jack M. Amaro

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This note proposes a framework for analyzing the point at which discretionary restrictions on the concealed carry of firearms are unconstitutional under the Second Amendment, which, at its core, guarantees the responsible, law-abiding citizen at least the right to use a firearm for self-defense. Although the Supreme Court has yet to affirmatively answer whether and to what extent this right extends beyond the home, every state allows its residents to publicly carry a firearm in some form—be it open or concealed. But states have the power to limit who may exercise this right; and some states curtail it to the …

The Constitutional Politics Heller Launched, Michael C. Dorf

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Second Amendment And Gun Control, Erwin Chemerinsky

Erwin Chemerinsky

No abstract provided.

Gun Rights Or Gun Control? How California's Waiting Period Law Can Pave The Way To Increased Regulation, Natasha Tran

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Real Danger Of Guns In Schools, Sonja R. West

Popular Media

This article that first appeared at Slate.com on March 22, 2016, looks at Georgia's "Campus Carry" Legislation. This legislation permits "any [firearm] license holder when he or she is in or on any building or real property owned by or leased to any public technical school, vocational school, college, university, or other institution of postsecondary education."

Who Gets To Determine If You Need Self Defense?: Heller And Mcdonald's Application Outside The House, Elizabeth Beaman

Seton Hall Circuit Review

No abstract provided.

The Absurd Logic Behind Florida’S Docs Vs. Glocks Law, Dahlia Lithwick, Sonja R. West

Popular Media

This article published at Slate.com on January 8, 2016, reviews the Wollschlaeger v. Governor of the State of Florida case in which the Florida legislature passed a law that bars health care workers from discussing or recording anything about their patients’ gun ownership or safety practices that could be deemed in bad faith, irrelevant, or harassing.

Guns, Sex, And Race: The Second Amendment Through A Feminist Lens, Verna L. Williams

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This article uses a recent move on the part of feminist legal advocates-social justice feminism ("SJF')--to explore the contours of the Second Amendment. Feminist legal theory, specifically SJF, reveals that the Second Amendment and attendant societal understandings ofthe right to keep and bear arms played a role in establishing and reproducing white male dominance. Understood in this way, the Court's decisions in Heller and McDonald reinforce structural oppression under the guise of promoting individual rights. To make that case, this article proceeds in four parts. Part I briefly addresses the question of why a feminist lens is useful in this …

Palmer V. District Of Columbia, Brian Noel

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Second Amendment Is Not Absolute, Sonja R. West

Popular Media

This article written at Slate.com on December 7, 2015 explains that like many other constitutional rights, the right to possess firearms in the 2nd Amendment, may be regulated by Congress.

Mcdonald V. Chicago, Self-Defense, The Right To Bear Arms, And The Future, Richard L. Aynes

ConLawNOW

In this article, Professor Richard L. Aynes, who was cited for his research by the majority in McDonald, delivers his critique on the opinion, the concurrence, and the dissent. Professor Aynes provides an in-depth analysis of Justice Thomas’ concurrence, which asserts the proper vehicle for incorporation to be the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges and Immunities Clause, as opposed to the traditional method employed by the court – the Due Process Clause. With contemporary legal scholarship in agreement with Justice Thomas, Professor Aynes asserts that just as the Privileges and Immunities Clause commanded the support of a ratifying nation, “it will …

Analyzing Second Amendment Challenges: Getting Strict With Judges, Lauren Dwarika

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Second Amendment Right To Bear Arms, Quilici V. Village Of Morton Grove, Mark Benedic

Akron Law Review

From the colonial firelock to today's inexpensive handgun, the United States has toiled over the right to keep and bear arms. In 1981, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois addressed this recurring issue in Quilici v. Village of Morton Grove. The arguments espoused in Quilici consisted of both traditional and novel hypotheses on this uncertain subject. Delivered within an atmosphere of renewed concern over the use and possession of firearms, the arguments in Quilici provide insight into the reasoning on both sides of the gun-control issue.

The following note reviews the potential ramifications of the …

Clearing The Smoke From The Right To Bear Arms And The Second Amendment, Anthony J. Dennis

Akron Law Review

Despite raging battles in Congress, in the press and in state legislatures over gun control, the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution, the very source of every U.S. citizen's right to possess firearms, is one of the most ignored and overlooked parts of the American Bill of Rights. Much of what has been said about the Second Amendment is hostile to the very rights so plainly guaranteed in that provision. Law school constitutional law classes frequently study the First Amendment, "close their eyes" to the Second and move immediately on to study the Fourth Amendment. Some have speculated that …

Resurrecting The "Dead" Second Amendment: How The Libertarian Legal Movement Has Shaped Gun Control Litigation, Anthony M. Sierzega

Politics Honors Papers

For nearly two centuries following its adoption, the Second Amendment was largely ignored and even referred to as a “dead amendment.” Virtually all legal scholarship considered the right protected by the amendment to be a collective right written into the Constitution to protect local militias from a powerful federal standing army. However, beginning in the late 1970s a surge of libertarian scholarship began to emerge promoting the Second Amendment as a safeguard for an individual right to bear arms without any connection to military service. Promoted by the National Rifle Association and libertarian theorists, the individual-right theory began to gain …

Does Heller Protect A Right To Carry Guns Outside The Home?, Michael C. Dorf

Michael C. Dorf

No abstract provided.

Identity Politics And The Second Amendment, Michael C. Dorf

Michael C. Dorf

No abstract provided.

What Does The Second Amendment Mean Today?, Michael C. Dorf

Michael C. Dorf

A growing body of scholarship argues that the Second Amendment protects a right of individuals to possess firearms, regardless of whether those individuals are organized in state militias. Proponents of the individual right view do not merely disagree with those who champion the competing view that the Second Amendment poses few if any obstacles to most forms of gun control legislation by the state or federal governments. They appear to believe that the Second Amendment has been subject to uniquely shabby treatment by the courts and, until recently, academic commentators. This Article argues that the Second Amendment has not been …

Carrying The Second Amendment Outside Of The Home: A Critique Of The Third Circuit's Decision In Drake V. Filko, Ryan Notarangelo

Catholic University Law Review

In D.C. v. Heller, the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s inherent right to keep and bear arms for self-defense-most notably, inside the home. Post-Heller, the lower courts are split on the Second Amendment’s protections outside of the home. This Note addresses the Third Circuit’s opinion on that split. In Drake v. Filko, the Third Circuit addressed whether New Jersey’s concealed carry permit law, which requires an individual to demonstrate a “justifiable need” to carry a handgun outside of the home, violated the Second Amendment. The plaintiffs were …

The Cost To Carry: New York State’S Regulation On Firearm Registration, David D. Pelaez

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Doe V. Wilmington Housing Authority: The Common Area Caveat As A Paradigmatic Balance Between Tenant Safety And Second Amendment Rights, Iyen Acosta

Catholic University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Second Amendment: An Analysis Of District Of Columbia V. Heller, Eileen Kaufman

Eileen Kaufman

No abstract provided.

The Second Amendment And Gun Control, Erwin Chemerinsky

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Second Amendment: An Analysis Of District Of Columbia V. Heller, Eileen Kaufman

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Banning High Capacity Magazines: Heller And The Right To Bear Arms, Matthew Eitelberg

Matthew J Eitelberg

The debate over gun control, once moribund, is now the topic of political conversation in state legislatures and in Congress. The massacre of 20 schoolchildren and 6 school employees at Sandy Hook Elementary School has made gun control a very real possibility. One target of recent gun control measures is a prohibition on the sale and manufacture of detachable high-capacity magazines for semiautomatic weapons. Presently, at the state and federal level, legislation has been proposed, or is in the process of being implemented, that would prohibit the sale and manufacture of detachable high-capacity magazines for semiautomatic weapons. Such proposals implicate …

3d Printers, Obsolete Firearm Supply Controls, And The Right To Build Self-Defense Weapons Under Heller, Peter Jensen-Haxel

Golden Gate University Law Review

This Comment describes how 3D printers will render current firearm regulations obsolete by allowing individuals to easily produce firearms—production that, when exercised by law-abiding citizens, may be protected under the Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller. The regulatory system will be undermined in two phases. First, printers will be able to produce the only regulated piece of a firearm, the frame. Second, the printing of complete guns may be realized as 3D print technology advances or firearm design evolves. These developments, which could cause substantial changes in how both criminals and legitimate consumers obtain firearms, could …