Law Commons^™

The High Price Of Poverty: A Study Of How The Majority Of Current Court System Procedures For Collecting Court Costs And Fees, As Well As Fines, Have Failed To Adhere To Established Precedent And The Constitutional Guarantees They Advocate., Trevor J. Calligan

Trevor J Calligan

No abstract provided.

The History Of Firearm Magazines And Magazine Prohibitions, David B. Kopel

David B Kopel

In recent years, the prohibition of firearms magazines has become an important topic of law and policy debate. This Article details the history of magazines and of magazine prohibition.

Because ten rounds is an oft-proposed figure for magazine bans, Part I of the Article provides the story of such magazines from the earliest sixteenth century onward. Although some people think that multi-shot guns did not appear until Samuel Colt invented the revolver in the 1830s, multi-shot guns predate Col. Colt by over two centuries.

Especially because the Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller considers whether arms are …

Understanding The Second Amendment, Corey A. Ciocchetti

Corey A Ciocchetti

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” These might be the most awkwardly assembled twentyseven words in American political history. Much like reading James Joyce’s FINNEGANS WAKE or William Faulkner’s THE SOUND AND THE FURY, the Second Amendment takes repeated review to grasp even basic understanding.1 Though few teachers would accept such garbled prose from students, early Americas accepted this so-called sentence as part of our Bill of Rights -- the most important protections granted to states and individuals from …

The Great American Gun Violence Lottery, Erin Ryan

Erin Ryan

Reflecting on the one-year anniversary of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, this very short essay compares the experience of gun violence in America to the dystopian game of chance in Shirley Jackson’s classic American short story, “The Lottery.” With references to the role of Constitutional law, media consumption, and cultural change, it urges an available, common-sense middle ground on gun policy. The essay was first published by the American Constitution Society (Dec. 17, 2013) and later appeared in the Huffington Post (Dec. 20, 2013).

Guns, Violence, And Schools: Policies To Prevent And Respond To School Shootings, Mark A. Velez

Mark A. Velez

The United States continues to deal with school shootings. The most recent massacre occurred in 2012 at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Several strategies have been used to try and prevent such tragedies from happening. These strategies have included tough gun laws, gun-free school zones, and updating school policies and infrastructure. However, despite these, and other, strategies, school shootings continue to occur. Unfortunately, when a school shooting occurs, school personnel and children are left helpless until the police arrive or the shooter decides to end the rampage. During this time many lives may be lost. Therefore, it …

Guns, Violence, And School Shootings: A Policy Change To Arm Some Teachers And School Personnel, Mark A. Velez

Mark A. Velez

The United States continues to deal with school shootings. The most recent massacre occurred in 2012 at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Several strategies have been used to try and prevent such tragedies from happening. These strategies have included tough gun laws, gun-free school zones, and updating school policies and infrastructure. However, despite these, and other, strategies, school shootings continue to occur. Unfortunately, when a school shooting occurs, school personnel and children are left helpless until the police arrive or the shooter decides to end the rampage. During this time many lives may be lost. Therefore, it …

2nd Amendment: The Right To Keep & Bear Arms -- Teaching D.C. V. Heller, Corey A. Ciocchetti

Corey A Ciocchetti

The D.C. v. Heller case is an incredible vehicle to teach about the United States Constitution. The case revolves around the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms and shines a spotlight on Originalism as a theory of Constitutional interpretation. These slides show how the case evolved from the District Court to the Supreme Court. They also teach the facts of the case and the different opinions on both sides of the debate. In the end, readers will learn a great deal about the Second Amendment and its application to federal and state/local gun control laws as well as …

Mcdonald V. Chicago. Fourteenth Amendment Incorporation, And Judicial Role Reversals, David T. Hardy

David T. Hardy

McDonald v. Chicago, which incorporated the Second Amendment right to arms, was the first Supreme Court ruling to address incorporation in many decades. It was an unusual ruling, in that the Court’s “conservative wing” took what had been traditionally the liberal approach, while its “liberal wing” suddenly became very conservative. Indeed, Justice Thomas staked out the most liberal position, while Justice Stevens staked out the most conservative one, and for good measure Justice Scalia found that precedent can trump originalism.

This article outlines the virtues, and problems, of the three major opinions in McDonald, and suggests solutions to some of …

The Second Amendment, Guns, And Murder In American History, Joseph Olson, Don Kates

Joseph E. Olson

Though Heller critics are rarely so frank as to put it this way, the case against Heller boils down to an ipse dixit that runs: Well yes, the Founders had guns; and yes they loved guns; and yes, Sam Adams. Roger Sherman, Thomas Paine, etc. all thought that perhaps the most essential human right was to be armed so as to protect your life; and yes, the Second Amendment reads “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” – but, no, the Amendment’s words somehow just do not mean what they say. They say …

What Mcdonald Means For Unenumerated Rights, Aaron Christopher Bryant

Aaron Christopher Bryant

In June a splintered Supreme Court held in McDonald v. City of Chicago that the Second Amendment applied to state and local governments. But the case was about much more than handguns. It presented the Court with an unprecedented opportunity to correct its erroneous precedent and revive the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause. The plurality declined the offer not, as Justice Alito’s opinion suggested, out of a profound respect for stare decisis, but rather because at least four Justices like the consequences of that ancient error, especially insofar as unenumerated rights are concerned. This observation in turn raises questions …

A Fighting Chance For Outlaws: Strict Scrutiny Of North Carolina's Felony Firearms Act, Matthew Jordan Cochran

Matthew Jordan Cochran

This comment presents a substantive due process challenge to North Carolina's Felony Firearms Act (codified at N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14‑415.1), which, as modified in 2004, criminalizes owning a firearm—even in your own home—if you've ever been convicted of a felony. The discussion is very comprehensive.

I begin with an assumption (which by now appears supported by Second Amendment jurisprudence and post-Heller commentary) that individuals have a fundamental right of self-defense, and proceed to demonstrate that the Act deprives persons of that right without being narrowly tailored toward furthering any compelling state interest. For example, the statute does not …

The Right To Arms In The Living Constitution, David B. Kopel

David B Kopel

This Article presents a brief history of the Second Amendment as part of the living Constitution. From the Early Republic through the present, the American public has always understood the Second Amendment as guaranteeing a right to own firearms for self-defense. That view has been in accordance with élite legal opinion, except for a period in part of the twentieth century.

"Living constitutionalism" should be distinguished from "dead constitutionalism." Under the former, courts looks to objective referents of shared public understanding of constitutional values. Examples of objective referents include state constitutions, as well as federal or state laws to protect …

State Court Standards Of Review For The Right To Keep And Bear Arms, David B. Kopel, Clayton Cramer

David B Kopel

Cases on the right to arms in state constitutions can provide useful guidance for courts addressing Second Amendment issues. Although some people have claimed that state courts always use a highly deferential version of "reasonableness," this article shows that many courts have employed rigorous standards, including the tools of strict scrutiny, such as overbreadth, narrow tailoring, and less restrictive means. Courts have also used categoricalism (deciding whether something is inside or outside the right) and narrow construction (to prevent criminal laws from conflicting with the right to arms). Even when formally applying "reasonableness," many courts have used reasonableness as a …

The Keystone Of The Second Amendment: Quakers, The Pennsylvania Constitution, And The Questionable Scholarship Of Nathan Kozuskanich, David B. Kopel, Clayton Cramer

David B Kopel

Historian Nathan Kozuskanich claims that the Second Amendment-like the arms provision of the 1776 Pennsylvania Constitution-is only a guarantee of a right of individuals to participate in the militia, in defense of the polity. Kozuskanich’s claim about the Second Amendment is based on two articles he wrote about the original public meaning of the right to arms in Pennsylvania, including the 1776 and 1790 Pennsylvania constitutional arms guarantees.

Part I of this Article provides a straightforward legal history of the right to arms provisions in the 1776 Pennsylvania Constitution and of the 1790 Pennsylvania Constitution. We examine Kozuskanich’s claims about …

A Caustic Critique Of District Of Columbia V Heller: An Extreme Makeover Of The Second Amendment, Robert L. Potter

Robert L Potter

ABSTRACT OF ARTICLE In June, 2008, in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court of the United States (5-4) held that the Second Amendment contained a right to possess and own firearms for personal purposes, removing any vestige of the famous introductory clause by James Madison, “A well regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free State ….” In this article the author takes serious issue with the methodology of the majority’s opinion by Mr. Justice Scalia, and demonstrates that: (1) Mr. Justice Scalia’s attempt to prove that “bear arms” does not have its idiomatic meaning, “to …

Take Your Gun To Work And Leave It In The Parking Lot: Why The Osh Act Does Not Preempt State Guns-At-Work Laws, Dayna B. Royal

Dayna B. Royal

TAKE YOUR GUN TO WORK AND LEAVE IT IN THE PARKING LOT: WHY THE OSH ACT DOES NOT PREEMPT STATE GUNS-AT-WORK LAWS

Dayna B. Harmelin

Abstract

As the gun-control debate rages on, many states have begun enacting laws to protect individuals’ rights to store their guns in their vehicles while at work. These “guns-at-work” laws limit employers’ ability to prevent employees from storing their guns in their vehicles on employer property.

At least two courts have considered the legitimacy of these laws. One found the laws preempted by the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (“Act”), which was enacted …

Heller’S Constitutional Dialogue: How The Supreme Court’S Choice Of Language In District Of Columbia V. Heller Is Instructive For Anticipating Future Interpretations Of The Second Amendment., Jason E. Niehaus

Jason E Niehaus

This article was an analysis of the language used by the Supreme Court in its decision in District of Columbia v. Heller to predict (ultimately correctly) the Court's later ruling regarding the Incorporation of the Second Amendment.

Rescuing The Fourteenth Amendment Privileges Or Immunities Clause: How “Attrition Of Parliamentary Processes” Begat Accidental Ambiguity; How Ambiguity Begat Slaughterhouse, Michael Anthony Lawrence

Michael Anthony Lawrence

This essay addresses a topic of great academic and practical interest currently facing the Supreme Court: whether the Privileges or Immunities Clause, which has lain dormant since the Court’s erroneous 1873 SlaughterHouse Cases decision, should be resurrected in order to apply the Second Amendment to the States.

The essay makes the unique argument that the textual basis for the SlaughterHouse Court’s holding regarding the clause - i.e., the lack of parallel textual construction in the Fourteenth Amendment Section One’s first two sentences regarding citizenship - was in fact the wholly unintentional product of what we might call “attrition of parliamentary …

The Second Amendment In The Tenth Circuit: Three Decades Of (Mostly) Harmless Error, David B. Kopel

David B Kopel

This article provides a detailed analysis of all Second Amendment cases which have been decided by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. The article examines the Circuit's superficial reasoning in its claims that the Second Amendment protects only militiamen, and the Circuit's refusal even to address important sources of authority which took a different view. Most of the Circuit's cases involving the Second Amendment are no longer good law, but in the post-Heller future, the Circuit can get to similiar results in most cases, since the cases involved bans on weapons that are not protected by the Second Amendment (e.g., …

Unraveling Judicial Restraint: Guns, Abortion, And The Faux Conservatism Of J. Harvie Wilkinson, Iii, Nelson Lund, David B. Kopel

David B Kopel

Writing in the Virginia Law Review, a distinguished federal judge maintains that true conservatives are required to substitute principles of judicial restraint for an inquiry into the original meaning of the Constitution. Accordingly, argues J. Harvie Wilkinson, III, the Supreme Court's Second Amendment decision in District of Columbia v. Heller is an activist decision just like Roe v. Wade: "[B]oth cases found judicially enforceable substantive rights only ambiguously rooted in the Constitution's text." In this response, we challenge his critique.

Part I shows that Judge Wilkinson's analogy between Roe and Heller is untenable. The right of the people to keep …

The Natural Right Of Self-Defense: Heller's Lesson For The World, David B. Kopel

David B Kopel

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in District of Columbia v. Heller constitutionalized the right of self-defense, and described self-defense as a natural, inherent right. Analysis of natural law in Heller shows why Justice Stevens' dissent is clearly incorrect, and illuminates a crucial weakness in Justice Breyer's dissent. The constitutional recognition of the natural law right of self-defense has important implications for American law, and for foreign and international law.

The New Doctrinalism In Constitutional Scholarship And Heller V. District Of Columbia, Brannon P. Denning

Brannon P. Denning

This brief essay examines an apparent new trend in constitutional scholarship that focuses less on the fixing of constitutional meaning--the usual focus of constitutional theory--and more on the rules courts develop to implement constitutional commands. This new doctrinalism offers a way forward from the stalemated debates of constitutional theory, and perhaps can bridge the oft remarked upon divide between academics on the one hand, and judges and practitioners on the other. While the New Doctrinalism has already attracted critics who question whether interpretation and doctrine can meaningfully be separated, the essay concludes that its emergence is a welcome one in …

Heller's Future In The Lower Courts, Brannon P. Denning, Glenn H. Reynolds

Brannon P. Denning

In this article, written shortly after the Heller decision, Glenn Reynolds and I speculate whether lower courts will implement Heller vigorously or, as happened with the Court's Commerce Clause cases, Lopez and Morrison, will render it largely a symbolic victory. While we note similarities between the Commerce Clause cases and Heller, we suggest important differences as well, that might make lower court resistance less likely.

Five Takes On District Of Columbia V. Heller, Brannon P. Denning, Glenn H. Reynolds

Brannon P. Denning

This paper, written for a symposium in the Ohio State Law Journal, offers five different takes on various aspects of the Heller decision.

The Checks And Balances Of Armed Self-Preservation, Robert E. Kohn

Robert E. Kohn

Analysis of the division of armed defensive forces within the modern system of checks and balances in American government. Dicussion of possible analogies to be drawn from that division of force for interpreting the Second Amendment and whether it creates an individual right to keep and to bear arms or only a collective right to armaments in organized military units such as the National Guard.

Tench Coxe And The Right To Keep And Bear Arms, 1787-1823, David B. Kopel

David B Kopel

Tench Coxe, a member of the second rank of this nation's Founders and a leading proponent of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, wrote prolifically about the right to keep and bear arms. In this Article, the authors trace Coxe's story, from his early writings in support of the Constitution, through his years of public service, to his political writings in opposition to the presidential campaigns of John Adams and John Quincy Adams. The authors note that Coxe described the Second Amendment as guaranteeing an individual right, and believed that an individual right to bear arms was necessary for …