Law Commons^™

The Nonracist And Antiracist History Of Firearms Public Carry Regulation, Mark A. Frassetto

SMU Law Review Forum

This term, the Supreme Court will consider New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, a Second Amendment challenge to New York State’s concealed carry weapon licensing system. Bruen is the first major Second Amendment case that the Court will decide on the merits in more than a decade. Briefing by the plaintiffs and gun rights scholars has in large part focused on arguments that laws regulating the carrying of guns in public, as well as gun regulation more generally, were historically intended to discriminate against minority groups. This argument is consistent with a broader effort in the conservative …

The Gun Rights Movement And 'Arms' Under The Second Amendment, Eric M. Ruben

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

After Donald Trump supporters breached the U.S. Capitol on January 6 wielding weapons including tasers, chemical sprays, knives, police batons, and baseball bats, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) remarked that the insurrection “didn’t seem . . . armed.” Johnson, who is A-rated by the National Rifle Association (NRA), observed, “When you hear the word ‘armed,’ don’t you think of firearms?” For many, the answer is likely yes.

This essay describes how the gun rights movement has contributed to the conflation of arms and firearms. In doing so, it shows how that conflation is flatly inconsistent with the most important legal context …

Law Of The Gun: Unrepresentative Cases And Distorted Doctrine, Eric Ruben

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

There is a familiar saying, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” The so-called Law of the Hammer takes a distinctive form in adjudication. If all judges see is one repeating fact pattern for a given area of law, they might perceive it as archetypical and build the law around it. If that fact pattern does not accurately reflect the field, however, the result can be analytical distortion in terms of both the choice of doctrine and its implementation.

This Article uses Second Amendment jurisprudence to illustrate this phenomenon. It reveals how District of Columbia …