Second Amendment Commons^™

The Faces Of The Second Amendment Outside The Home, Take Two: How We Got Here And Why It Matters, Patrick J. Charles

Cleveland State Law Review

Since the late twentieth century, the Second Amendment has been increasingly promoted as the unfettered right to carry firearms in the public concourse. This expansive meaning, however, lacks historical support. Historical evidence reveals a disparity between the Anglo-American origins of armed carriage laws and present-day interpretations of the Second Amendment. The historical backdrop also reveals the impact pro-gun organizations have had on the expansion of armed carriage. Differences in state armed carriage laws, analyzed from both historical and regional perspectives, will one day require the Supreme Court to determine which version of history should dictate the meaning of the Second …

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.

Recent Developments: The Constitutionality Of Regulations And Bans On The Second Amendment, Trevor Shaw

University of Baltimore Journal of Land and Development

The 9th Circuit decided to overturn a local California county zoning ordinance that was infringing upon a citizen’s Second Amendment right to own and operate a gun store. The ordinance stated that any store that sold firearms or operated as a firing range needed to be 500 feet away from the front door of the shop to the front door of school zones, government buildings, residential areas, and other stores that sell firearms. The owners of Valley Guns & Ammo found a place located in Alameda County, just outside the radius and began working on acquiring the property and renovating …

The Law And Politics Of Firearms Regulation In Reconstruction Texas, Mark Anthony Frassetto

Texas A&M Law Review

In District of Columbia v. Heller, Justice Scalia instructed that the historical understanding of the right to keep and bear arms should inform our present day understanding of the Second Amendment. This means an accurate accounting of the history of firearms regulation is essential for understanding the scope of the Second Amendment. The current state of scholarship on Second Amendment history paints post-Civil War firearms regulations as racist efforts by Southern states to prevent blacks from defending themselves against racial violence. This reading distorts the historical record by ignoring the actors responsible for numerous gun laws across the former Confederacy. …

End The Popularity Contest: A Proposal For Second Amendment 'Type Of Weapon' Analysis, Cody Jacobs

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court’s recognition of an individual Second Amendment right to bear arms for self-defense raised many questions about the scope and content of that right. One issue that will become increasingly important in the years ahead, but that has received relatively little attention from scholars and courts, is the question of which “arms” are protected by that right. The Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller purports to lay out a test that asks whether the weapon at issue is in “common use” at the time the case is decided. This article critiques that test, arguing that …

Let’S Not Forget: We Have A State Interest To Promote, Elias Arroyo

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

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 …

"Your Weapons, You Will Not Need Them." Comment On The Supreme Court's Sixty-Year Silence On The Right To Keep And Bear Arms, Anthony Gallia

Akron Law Review

Interpretation of the Second Amendment can be divided into two different schools of thought; individual rights theorists, and collective rights theorists. Individual rights theorists argue that the Second Amendment creates a right in every person to keep and bear arms. Collective rights theorists advance the position that the Second Amendment creates a collective right in the people as a whole. The purpose of this comment is to emphasize the controversy surrounding the Second Amendment and the need for guidance on the issue by the United States Supreme Court. Part II of this article discusses the text of the Second Amendment …

Questioning The Necessity Of Concealed Carry Laws, William J. Michael

Akron Law Review

The State of Ohio recently became the thirty-seventh state to pass some form of concealed carry legislation, under which persons may carry concealed firearms. Given the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, such legislation appears unnecessary since individuals have a constitutional right to carry firearms.

In this article, I argue that the Second Amendment’s text guarantees an individual’s right (not a state’s right or a “collective” right) to keep and bear firearms. Part I of this article contains that argument. If the text is binding—and I believe it is—further analysis regarding whether the Second Amendment guarantees an individual’s right …

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 Right To Remain Armed, Jeffrey Bellin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The laws governing gun possession are changing rapidly. In the past two years, federal courts have wielded a revitalized Second Amendment to invalidate longstanding gun carrying restrictions in Chicago, the District of Columbia, and throughout California. Invoking similar Second Amendment themes, legislators across the country have steadily deregulated public gun carrying, preempting municipal gun control ordinances in cities like Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Cleveland. These changes to substantive gun laws reverberate through the constitutional criminal procedure framework. By making it lawful for citizens to carry guns even in crowded urban areas, enhanced Second Amendment rights trigger Fourth Amendment protections that could …

The First Century Of Right To Arms Litigation, David B. Kopel

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines state court cases involving the right to arms, during the first century following ratification of the Amendment in 1791. This is not the first article to survey some of those cases. This Article includes additional cases, and details the procedural postures and facts, not only the holdings. The Article closely examines how the Supreme Court integrated the nineteenth century arms cases into Heller and McDonald to shape modern Second Amendment law.

Part I briefly explains two English cases which greatly influenced American legal understandings. Semayne’s Case is the foundation of “castle doctrine” — the right to home …

Rwu Law: The Magazine Of Roger Williams University School Of Law (Issue No. 8) (2015), Roger Williams University School Of Law

RWU Law

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 …

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

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Law—Shooting Blanks: Smart Gun Mandates And Their Concomitant Constitutional, Regulatory, Public Policy, And Practical Issues, William F. Godbold Iv

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ordered Gun Liberty: Rights With Responsibilities And Regulation, Linda C. Mcclain, James E. Fleming

Faculty Scholarship

This Article focuses on the case of the Second Amendment right to bear arms and gun control to examine whether the Constitution has fostered a pathological rights culture of rights without responsibilities and regulation. We offer some preliminary thoughts about “ordered gun liberty” – the individual right to bear arms in relation to responsibilities, virtues, and regulation. This article addresses a conundrum concerning this right: there is no individual right that cries out more for governmental encouragement of responsibility concerning its exercise and for governmental regulation to promote safety and to protect from harm, and yet there is no individual …

The Tools Of Political Dissent: A First Amendment Guide To Gun Registries, Thomas E. Kadri

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

On December 23, 2012, a newspaper in upstate New York published a provocative map. On it appeared the names and addresses of thousands of gun owners in nearby counties, all precisely pinpointed for the world to browse. The source of this information: publicly available data drawn from the state’s gun registry. Legislators were quick to respond. Within a month, a new law offered gun owners the chance to permanently remove their identities from the registry with a simple call to their county clerk. The map raised interesting questions about broadcasting personal information, but a more fundamental question remains: Are these …

Are Some Rights Wrong?, Megan A. Fenrich

SURGE

“When the time came, I did it. I had to.” – Seung-Hui Cho

Even though it’s been more than six years since April 16, 2007, I still find myself watching the YouTube videos and glimpsing the pictures my parents tried so hard to conceal me from. Words dripping with hatred, guns and other weapons pointed at the viewer. I can understand why my parents didn't want a seventh grader to view these. [excerpt]

Dispatches From The Trenches Of America's Great Gun Trust Wars, Lee-Ford Tritt

UF Law Faculty Publications

Without question, the national dialogue pertaining to the right to bear arms and the possible expansion of gun control regulations is shaping up to be one of the more heated political topics of the twenty-first century. At the moment, fervent participants on both sides of this ongoing debate have focused a spotlight on an estate planning instrument commonly referred to as a “gun trust.” Typically, estate planning products rarely cause the kind of nationally impassioned discussion as seen with gun trusts. So why have trusts, a commonly used estate planning tool, become entangled in this lively, and often vitriolic, national …

Woollard V. Gallagher: Normalizing The Fourth Circuit’S Approach To Second Amendment Challenges, William Young Jr.

Maryland Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

Article I Section 13 Of The Virginia Constitution: Of Militias And An Individual Right To Bear Arms, Hon. Stephen R. Mccullough

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Doctor Will See You Now: An Argument For Amending The Licensing Process For Handguns In New York City, Alexander C. Depalo

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Second Amendment And Gun Control, Erwin Chemerinsky

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Docs Versus Glocks: N.R.A. Takes Aim At Florida Physicians’ Freedom Of Speech: Leaving Patients’ Health, Safety, And Welfare At Risk, Michelle Foody

Cardozo Law Review de•novo

Part I of this Note provides background on the Act at issue, its legislative history, the current status of the Supreme Court’s free speech jurisprudence, and it also introduces the constitutional interests at stake. Part II considers the constitutionality of the Act under the existing First Amendment standard and addresses the State’s assertions under the Second Amendment. Part III proposes that the Court’s standard ought to be recalibrated, taking into account the would-be listeners’ cognizable interest in the information. Part III goes on to legitimate the proposal by reconciling this new examination standard with existing free speech jurisprudence and justifications, …

Federalism As A Preventive Measure: Avoiding State Enforcement Of Federal Anti-Gun Legislation In 2013, Brielle Hunt

Law Student Publications

This comment will delve into the question of whether or not the Constitution allows states to refuse to comply with federal law. This analysis requires the application of a constitutional principle that reaches far beyond the scope of the Right to Bear Arms; it calls into play the vertical separation of powers and the rights belonging to state sovereigns described in the Tenth Amendment. The comment will proceed as follows. Part II will address the constitutionality of House Bill 2340, compared against other kinds of legislation and in light of case law. It will be argued that the Federal Government …

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

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

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.

The Faces Of The Second Amendment Outside The Home: History Versus Ahistorical Standards Of Review, Patrick J. Charles

Cleveland State Law Review

This article disagrees that the courts need to reinvent or recast the Second Amendment outside the home to reflect its “fundamental” status as recognized in Heller and McDonald. The history of public arms regulation already provides significant guideposts for the courts to adjudicate the right to “keep and bear arms” in public. To accomplish this, it requires placing history in context and not letting mythical interpretations or historical assumptions to permeate.Thus, this article begins by decoding the public carrying of arms as the founding generation would have understood it. It provides substantiating historical evidence that counters the mythical meanings of …