Second Amendment Commons^™

The Evolution Of The Supreme Court's Second Amendment Jurisprudence, Kermit V. Lipez

Maine Law Review

We live in the shadow of an epidemic of gun violence. We dread the next report of an inevitable mass shooting. We no longer feel secure in public places. We fear for the safety of our children and our grandchildren at their schools. We shake our heads in disbelief at the empty ritual of "thoughts and prayers" for victims and their families. As one commentator put it, we suffer from the "[u]nbearable [m]onotony of [g]rief." Why must we live like this? Why are there no solutions? In conversations posing these questions, there are often references to the Supreme Court's Second …

Second Amendment: Incompatible Methodologies And The Bruen And Heller Opinions' Underlying Misalignment, Henry H. Robinson

Touro Law Review

In its 2022 Bruen opinion, the Supreme Court characterized the Heller opinion as having applied a “methodological approach” for interpretation of the Second Amendment. However, Bruen’s description and summary partially omitted, and was materially misaligned with, Heller’s actual reasoning. In Heller’s first step of constitutional interpretation, which addressed the first clause of the sentence comprising the Second Amendment, the opinion had selectively not applied the methodological approach described in Bruen; Heller’s first step had applied a different, incompatible methodological approach. Bruen’s description was aligned only with the second step of Heller’s constitutional reasoning, which had addressed the sentence’s second clause. …

Retconning Heller: Five Takes On New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. V. Bruen, Brannon P. Denning, Glenn H. Reynolds

William & Mary Law Review

New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen was the first significant Second Amendment case that the Supreme Court had heard in nearly fifteen years since its decision in District of Columbia v. Heller. This Article offers some preliminary observations about the opinion itself, as well as its likely effects, some of which are starting to manifest.

Our first take concerns the question of opinion assignment. Why did Chief Justice Roberts—whose support for the Second Amendment has been suspect—assign the opinion to Justice Thomas?

Takes Two and Three concern Justice Thomas’s substitution of text, history, and tradition …

There Is No Bruen Step Zero: The Law-Abiding Citizen And The Second Amendment, Jeff Campbell

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

In District of Columbia v. Heller, 1 the Supreme Court transformed Second Amendment law by adopting an originalist approach in gun-rights cases. Breaking from its previous cases, the Court recognized an individual right to bear arms, at least within the home.2 The Court’s method, while not fully specified, focused on history to determine the meaning of the Second Amendment. 3 But despite the abrupt change in the law, the anticipated revolution never really came. Lower courts turned away nearly every challenge to existing gun laws, sometimes by declining to extend Heller outside the home,4 sometimes by finding that the laws …

We Clerked For Justices Scalia And Stevens. America Is Getting Heller Wrong., Katherine A. Shaw, John Bash

Online Publications

In the summer of 2008, the Supreme Court decided District of Columbia v. Heller, in which the court held for the first time that the Second Amendment protected an individual right to gun ownership. We were law clerks to Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the majority opinion, and Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote the lead dissent.

Constitutional Law—Large-Capacity Magazine Bans And The Second Amendment, Jared Self

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

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 …

Regulating Armed Private Militia Gatherings: A Constitutional State-Level Proposal To Promote Public Safety In A Post-Heller World, Sean Tenaglia

William & Mary Law Review

“Yesterday, in my view, was one of the darkest days in the history of our nation.” President Joseph R. Biden spoke these words following the January 6, 2021 riots at the U.S. Capitol Building that left five people, including a police officer, dead. The mob that stormed the Capitol sought to prevent Congress from certifying then-President-elect Biden’s Electoral College victory. In the weeks following the riot, investigators began arresting rioters associated with extremist right-wing militia groups, such as the Oath Keepers and Three Percenters. While January 6, 2021, can accurately be labeled a dark day in American history, the events …

Gun Safety In The Age Of Kavanaugh, Joseph S. Hartunian

Michigan Law Review Online

This Essay takes stock of the different approaches adopted and advocated for in evaluating constitutional challenges in Second Amendment opinions throughout the country. The author’s hope is that doing so will help highlight the contours for debate when the Supreme Court does finally start to define some of the limits purported to exist by Justice Scalia. Part I analyzes the paths explicitly rejected by Heller I by reviewing the limits considered allowable by Justice Scalia. Part II considers the ongoing debate between the courts on the application of “strict” or “intermediate” scrutiny for Second Amendment challenges. Part III examines then-Judge …

The Business Of Guns: The Second Amendment & Firearms Commerce, Corey A. Ciocchetti

Pepperdine Law Review

Does the Second Amendment protect commerce in firearms? The simple answer is: yes, to an extent. An individual’s right to possess and use a gun for self-defense in the home is black-letter law after District of Columbia v. Heller. The right to possess and use a gun requires the ability to obtain a gun, ammunition, and firearms training. Therefore, gun dealers, servicers, and training providers receive some constitutional protection as facilitators of their customers’ Second Amendment rights. Whether these constitutional rights belong to firearms-related businesses independently of their customers is unclear. The scope of the Second Amendment matters as recent, …

Stevens, J., Dissenting: The Legacy Of Heller, Joseph Blocher, Darrell A. H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Is The Second Amendment Becoming Irrelevant?, A Winkler

Indiana Law Journal

Why might the Second Amendment cease to serve this vital constitutional function? The explanation begins with the difference between how the Second Amendment is invoked in political debates and how the amendment is invoked in court. There are, it seems, two Second Amendments. There is a Judicial Second Amendment comprised of court decisions interpreting the provision, and there is an Aspirational Second Amendment that is used in political dialogue. These two versions of the Second Amendment are different; the aspirational one is far more hostile to gun laws than the judicial one.

Moreover, the Aspirational Second Amendment is overtaking the …

The "Scourge" Of Armed Check Fraud: A Constitutional Framework For Prohibited Possessor Laws, Jeffrey Giancana

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Prohibited possessor statutes have been a part of American law for decades. Put simply, these laws prohibit any person who has been convicted of a felony from possessing a firearm, a prohibition that lasts for the felon’s entire life. The Supreme Court’s modern Second Amendment jurisprudence has held that the right to possess a firearm is a fundamental individual right. In light of this new paradigm, the constitutionality of such broad prohibitions must be called into question—despite the eagerness of courts across the country to dismiss such challenges by pointing to a single line in Heller. This Note challenges the …

Keep Your Powder Dry And Your Standards High: Protect The Second Amendment's Core With Strict Scrutiny Review, Rebecca L. Trump

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Reason To Resist: The Use Of Deadly Force In Aiding Victims Of Unlawful Police Aggression, Kindaka Sanders

San Diego Law Review

Some two and a half years before the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by a Ferguson, Missouri Police Officer, the Indiana State Legislature enacted Indiana Code § 35-41-3-2 authorizing the use of force, including deadly force against public servants acting unlawfully against the persons or property of Indiana citizens. The statute, passed in March of 2012, is the first of its kind. It was passed in reaction to the Indiana Supreme Court's decision in Barnes v. State, which abolished the common law right to resist an unlawful arrest. Gun rights groups, most notably the National Rifle Association (NRA), responded in …

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

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Firearm Regionalism And Public Carry: Placing Southern Antebellum Case Law In Context, Eric Ruben, Saul A. Cornell

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

In recent years, following the Supreme Court’s landmark originalist opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, courts have been asked to strike down restrictions on the public carrying of handguns on the basis of the original understanding of the Second Amendment. One of the key sources used to justify this outcome is a family of opinions from the antebellum South asserting an expansive right to carry weapons in public. In this essay we explore whether that body of case law reflected a national consensus on the meaning of the right to bear arms or, in the alternative, a narrower regional …

New Approaches To Old Questions In Gun Scholarship, Joseph Blocher

Faculty Scholarship

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.

Good Cause Requirements For Carrying Guns In Public, Joseph Blocher

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Knives And The Second Amendment, David B. Kopel, Clayton E. Cramer, Joseph Edward Olson

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article is the first scholarly analysis of knives and the Second Amendment. Under the Supreme Court’s standard in District of Columbia v. Heller, knives are Second Amendment “arms” because they are “typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes,” including self-defense. There is no knife that is more dangerous than a modern handgun; to the contrary, knives are much less dangerous. Therefore, restrictions on carrying handguns set the upper limit for restrictions on carrying knives. Prohibitions on carrying knives in general, or of particular knives, are unconstitutional. For example, bans of knives that open in a convenient way (e.g., …

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.

Text, History, And Tradition: What The Seventh Amendment Can Teach Us About The Second, Darrell A. H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

In District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago, the Supreme Court made seemingly irreconcilable demands on lower courts: evaluate Second Amendment claims through history, avoid balancing, and retain as much regulation as possible. To date, lower courts have been unable to devise a test that satisfies all three of these conditions. Worse, the emerging default candidate, intermediate scrutiny, is a test that many jurists and scholars consider exceedingly manipulable.

This Article argues that courts could look to the Supreme Court’s Seventh Amendment jurisprudence, and in particular the Seventh Amendment’s “historical test,” to help them devise a …

Firearm Localism, Joseph Blocher

Faculty Scholarship

Second Amendment doctrine is largely becoming a line-drawing exercise, as courts try to determine which “Arms” are constitutionally protected, which “people” are permitted to keep and bear them, and in which ways those arms and people can be regulated. But the developing legal regime has yet to account for one potentially significant set of lines: the city limits themselves. In rural areas, gun crime and gun control are relatively rare, and gun culture is strong. In cities, by contrast, rates of violent gun crime are comparatively high, and opportunities for recreational gun use are scarce. And from colonial Boston to …

Analogies And Institutions In The First And Second Amendments: A Response To Professor Magarian, Darrell A.H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

In this essay, Professor Darrell Miller responds to Professor Gregory Magarian's criticism of the manner in which judges, advocates, and scholars have used the First Amendment to frame Second Amendment interpretive questions.

Guns And Ammo: For Convicted Americans Viewing Pictures Of Others Enjoying Their Constitutional Right To Bear Arms In A Magazine Is The Closest They Will Ever Get To Seeing The Second Amendment At Work - People V. Hughes, Ronald P. Perry

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Second Things First: What Free Speech Can And Can’T Say About Guns, Joseph Blocher

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Blocher responds to Gregory Magarian’s article on the implications of the First Amendment for the Second.

Retail Rebellion And The Second Amendment, Darrell A. H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

When, if ever, is there a Second Amendment right to kill a cop? This piece seeks to answer that question. In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment codifies a natural right to keep and bear arms for self-defense. That right to self-defense extends to both private and public threats, including self-defense against agents of a tyrannical government. Moreover, the right is individual. Individuals -- not just communities -- have the right to protect themselves from public violence. Individuals -- not just militias -- have the right to defend themselves against tyranny. In McDonald …

Guns, Inc.: Citizens United, Mcdonald, And The Future Of Corporate Constitutional Rights, Darrell A. H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court began its 2009 Term by addressing the constitutional rights of corporations. It ended the Term by addressing the incorporated rights of the Constitution. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a five-member majority of the Court held that corporations have a First Amendment right to spend their own money on political advocacy. A corporation generally is no different than a natural person when it comes to the First Amendment - at least as it relates to political speech. In McDonald v. City of Chicago, a plurality of the Court held that the Second Amendment to the United …