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Full-Text Articles in Law
Firearms Law And Scholarship Beyond Bullets And Bodies, Joseph Blocher, Jacob D. Charles, Darrell A. H. Miller
Firearms Law And Scholarship Beyond Bullets And Bodies, Joseph Blocher, Jacob D. Charles, Darrell A. H. Miller
Faculty Scholarship
Academic work is increasingly important to court rulings on the Second Amendment and firearms law more generally. This article highlights two recent trends in social science research that supplement the traditional focus on guns and physical harm. The first strand of research focuses on the changing ways that gun owners connect with firearms, with personal security, status, identity, and cultural markers being key reasons people offer for possessing firearms. The second strand focuses on broadening our understanding of the impact of guns on the public sphere beyond just physical safety. This research surfaces the ways that guns can create fear, …
Common Use, Lineage, And Lethality, Darrell A. H. Miller, Jennifer Tucker
Common Use, Lineage, And Lethality, Darrell A. H. Miller, Jennifer Tucker
Faculty Scholarship
Political and legal debates over assault rifles, large-capacity magazines, and other lethal technology are characterized by increasing rancor and hostility. Lack of a common vocabulary to describe the topics of debate, much less facilitate a constructive dialogue, only aggravates this trend. Sorely missing from the current debate is a shared vocabulary for what the public policy and the constitutional doctrine are aiming to achieve. Part I of this Article outlines the state of Second Amendment doctrine with respect to which and what type of arms are protected, and the confused language and goals of that doctrine. Part II provides a …
Securing Gun Rights By Statute: The Right To Keep And Bear Arms Outside The Constitution, Jacob D. Charles
Securing Gun Rights By Statute: The Right To Keep And Bear Arms Outside The Constitution, Jacob D. Charles
Faculty Scholarship
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 …
Pointing Guns, Joseph Blocher, Samuel W. Buell, Jacob D. Charles, Darrell A. H. Miller
Pointing Guns, Joseph Blocher, Samuel W. Buell, Jacob D. Charles, Darrell A. H. Miller
Faculty Scholarship
The American gun debate is increasingly populated with scenes of people pointing and otherwise displaying guns. What is the legal regime governing gun displays, and how well can it address the distinct social and legal problems they pose? In this Essay, we argue that the current structure of criminal law does not supply clear rules of conduct sufficient to avoid the negative effects of gun displays, and that the rhetorical and expressive effects of Second Amendment debates threaten to make the situation worse. We also suggest how the legal rules might be improved, and how battles over norms—as much as …
Two Concepts Of Gun Liberty, Joseph Blocher
Hunting And The Second Amendment, Joseph Blocher
Hunting And The Second Amendment, Joseph Blocher
Faculty Scholarship
Debates about the meaning and scope of the Second Amendment have traditionally focused on whether it protects the keeping and bearing of arms for self-defense, prevention of tyranny, maintenance of the militia, or some combination of those three things. But roughly half of American gun-owners identify hunting or sport shooting as their primary reason for owning a gun. And while much public rhetoric suggests that these activities fall within the scope of the Second Amendment, some of the most committed gun-rights advocates insist that the Amendment “ain’t about hunting” and that, no matter their heritage and value, such activities are …
New Approaches To Old Questions In Gun Scholarship, Joseph Blocher
New Approaches To Old Questions In Gun Scholarship, Joseph Blocher
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Gun Rights Talk, Joseph Blocher