Second Amendment Commons^™

The Wrongly Read Right: Insurrection And The Second Amendment Right To Bear Arms, Aman Mcleod, Jacob M. Jones

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Several judges and scholars have interpreted the Second Amendment as creating a right to bear arms to facilitate armed resistance against the government whenever it threatens to impose tyranny. These arguments have been made in books, scholarly articles, and court decisions. Many of the proponents of the pro-armed insurrection interpretation of the Second Amendment root this point of view in the history of the right to bear arms in the Anglo-American legal tradition. This Article argues that the Second Amendment does not create a right to bear arms to resist government authority because such a right is inconsistent with several …

Big Business As Gun Control, David B. Kopel, George A. Mocsary, Bhav Ninder Singh

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Gun control increasingly bypasses direct legislative enactments by co-opting the commercial marketplace. Financial institutions and insurers often face regulatory pressures, frequently articulated through vague notions of “reputational risk,” to terminate or restrict services for lawful firearms businesses and advocacy groups. The debanking tactic, seen in initiatives such as Operation Choke Point, can deny essential financial products to firearm owners, merchants, and organizations, curtailing the practical exercise of constitutionally protected rights. Simultaneously, government agencies sometimes pursue warrantless data collection from bank records and merchant category codes, building profiles of lawful purchasers and eroding privacy and due-process norms.

Social media platforms compound …

Dangerous And Unusual: How Heller’S Ahistorical Assumption Violates The Founders’ Original Intent, Oliver Krawczyk, Gilbert Ambler

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

When the U.S. Supreme Court ended its generational silence on the Second Amendment in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Court held that “a prohibition of an entire class of ‘arms’ that is overwhelmingly chosen by American society” is “invalid.” In so holding, the Court suggested that the Constitution protects only those weapons “in common use at the time,” a limitation thought to be “fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’” The Court defined none of these terms then, and it has not since.

Over a decade of constitutional infidelity ensued. …

Just To Be Safe, Let’S Keep Ignoring What “Arms” Meant In 1791, Jack Thorlin

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The Supreme Court held in District of Columbia v. Heller and reaffirmed in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen that “arms,” referred to in the Second Amendment, are common weapons useful for lawful purposes. The majority argued that militiamen fought with whatever common weapons they had on hand for civilian purposes, such as self-defense and hunting. Therefore, under Heller, only those weapons are covered by the Second Amendment. However, Heller did little to ground the “self-defense” theory of “arms” in original public meaning or even actual history. Commonality and lawful purpose have proved difficult for lower …

Unfinished Liberties, Inevitable Balancing, Sherif Girgis

Journal Articles

From the Article

In constitutional liberties cases, the Supreme Court has tried to reduce balancing, understood loosely to mean determining a right’s contours based on sweeping political-moral considerations, not just text and history. It fears that today’s balancing would displace a balance struck by the Founders. Balancing is indeed problematic—but this campaign to end it is bound to fail. Though avoidable for many constitutional rights, balancing is inevitable for general liberties like religion, the Second Amendment, and speech. This inevitability arises not from gaps in text or history but from these liberties’ special role.

General liberties are irreducibly open-ended—not reducible …

Let The Sunshine In: Crafting Constitutional Transparency Regulations For Content Moderation, Caitlin Ring Carlson

Seattle University Law Review

In response to public concern about the impact of social media, legislators in some U.S. states have developed laws to regulate the process of content moderation. Many include mandatory transparency and disclosure requirements, some of which courts have already deemed an unconstitutional infringement on social media platforms’ right to free expression. This article explores the parameters for crafting constitutional social media transparency regulations using existing U.S. media policy and insights from recent legal challenges. The resulting analysis identifies content neutral transparency requirements that mandate the disclosure of purely factual, non-controversial information as those most likely to withstand judicial scrutiny. Specifically, …

This Is Not A Game: The Addictive Allure Of Digital Companions, Nizan Geslevich Packin, Karni Chagal-Feferkorn

Seattle University Law Review

Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents have become an inescapable part of modern childhood, reshaping education, leisure activities, entertainment, and social interaction. From AI-powered tutors that adapt to individual learning styles to emotionally responsive chatbots that simulate human companionship, these systems promise unprecedented personalization, cognitive stimulation, and social support. However, these benefits mask significant risks that remain unregulated and inadequately addressed.

Although adults are also susceptible to forming deep emotional bonds with AI companions—often trusting them as if they possessed genuine understanding and empathy—children are particularly vulnerable. Their misplaced trust can more severely distort social development, weaken critical thinking, and foster unhealthy …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Re-Imagining Tomorrow: A Technology, Innovation Law, And Ethics Symposium On Addictive Technology And Children, Margaret Chon

Seattle University Law Review

In this Foreword, Professor Margaret Chon introduces Seattle University's Technology, Innovation Law, and Ethics (TILE) program, the 2024 TILE Symposium, and Dr. Gaia Bernstein’s Unwired: Gaining Control Over Addictive Technologies.

Keynote Address: The Movement To Protect Kids From Addictive Technologies, Gaia Bernstein

Seattle University Law Review

In this keynote address, I describe my personal journey starting with a school outreach program I created in 2017 to address technology overuse among kids. While I initially advocated for self-help methods, I grew to recognize that the tech industry bore responsibility. This realization led me to write Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies, which focused on collective action to pressure the tech industry to redesign its addictive products.

I then describe the movement to control addictive technologies and protect kids, which has gained momentum since the end of the pandemic. This movement combines grassroots parent activism with legal-political action. …

Moral Panic Or Public Health Crisis? Lessons From Drugs And Gambling For “Addictive” Design, Matthew B. Lawrence, Haomin (Kevin) Yan

Seattle University Law Review

Alcohol, automobiles, guns, lottery, loot boxes, meat, music, opioid painkillers, processed foods, prop bets, slot machines, television, tobacco, violent video games. Over the last century each of these has been subject to concerns—some might even say “moral panics”—from parents and policymakers about avoidable harms to kids and adults. In some cases we look back with the benefit of hindsight and dismiss those concerns as naïve or moralistic. In others we look back at them as justified or as having come too late to check an expanding industry before it did unfathomable harm while growing so powerful that it became all …

Responding To Digital Addiction, Ned Snow

Seattle University Law Review

In Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies, Professor Gaia Bernstein calls our attention to the growing problem of digital addiction. Digital addiction may sound like something out of a science-fiction novel or something that does not raise the same sort of real-life practical concerns as are present in a physical health crisis or an economic decline. But as Bernstein presents the evidence, we learn that the consequences of digital addiction can be just as harmful as a serious disease or a financial depression. Cognitive development disorders, anxiety, emotional depression, social isolation, and other mental health ills can be debilitating—as much …

The Ai Doppelgänger Dilemma: Cloned Voices In The Music Industry, Elizabeth Shields

Seattle University Law Review

With the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI), there has been an influx of “voice clones”—deep-learning algorithms that create synthetic speech to realistically mimic human voices. Celebrities and, in particular, music artists, have been subjected to the proliferation of AI voice clones on social media platforms like TikTok and streaming platforms such as Spotify. Despite music utilizing AI voice clones having amassed much popularity, this technology can be harmful and highly invasive to musicians whose livelihoods often depend on their distinct voices. While legal scholars have attempted to articulate various rights that could protect a person’s voice, individuals are largely …

Cars Don’T Stop For Yellow Lights: Turning Maine’S Yellow Flag Law Red, Jamison Rhoads-Doyle

Maine Law Review

This Case Note is about Maine’s Extreme Risk Protection Order law, Title 34-B, Section 3862-A, of the Maine Revised Statutes. The purpose of Maine’s law and others like it is to proactively take firearms away from individuals who present a substantial risk of violently harming themselves or others. In the aftermath of the mass shooting which occurred in Lewiston, Maine on October 25, 2023, there was debate over whether law enforcement could have used Section 3862-A to proactively prevent the shooting, as well as over whether Section 3862-A was an effective tool for preventing violence in the first place. This …

Missouri's Law Of Constitutional Interpretation, Michael L. Smith

UMKC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Smoking Guns In The Rearview Mirror: Defending Washington's Firearm Regulations With Historical Analogues, Hyejin Lee

Washington Law Review

Mass shootings and gun violence are inescapable facts of American life. America is the only developed country where mass shootings occur almost daily. Despite the widespread sentiment of hopelessness surrounding this problem, state and local governments have been enacting various gun restriction laws. However, in a series of recent cases, the U.S. Supreme Court established an originalist standard for evaluating Second Amendment claims that poses significant challenges to the constitutionality of state and local gun laws. To survive constitutional muster, gun laws today must share common regulatory purpose and mechanism with historical analogues from the period between the founding and …

Constitutional Law—Arkansas’S Unconstitutional Gun Restrictions For The Formerly Mentally Ill, Michael Frost

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Voting Matters: Materiality Considerations And The Shareholder Vote, Renee M. Jones

Seattle University Law Review

For the shareholder franchise to have meaning, shareholders must have access to relevant information to inform their voting decisions. The securities laws’ disclosure requirements play an essential role in informing the shareholder vote.

This Essay focuses on the question of the materiality of information in the context of shareholder voting. It addresses the question of whether ESG-related information is material, positioning the materiality inquiry within the context of shareholders’ voting decisions. It explores the definition of materiality with a focus on the “reasonable investor” concept embedded within the definition. The Essay argues that the implicit expectations of many commentators that …

Through A Glass Darkly: How Securities Disclosures Give A Distorted View Of The Economy, Gerald F. Davis

Seattle University Law Review

Our understanding of the American economy often relies on stylized facts derived from mandatory disclosures by listed corporations. Data vendors like Standard & Poor’s vacuum up 10Ks and proxy statements into databases, and scholars distill these into tentative maps. This may have been adequate for a postwar economy centered on asset-heavy manufacturers, but it is increasingly out of step with an information-based economy. Companies listed on the stock market are fewer in number and less representative than they were, light in tangible assets and people, and heavy on IP. Basic facts such as what industry they are in are increasingly …

Why Domestic Violence Offenders Don't Give Up Their Guns, Natalie Nanasi

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Perpetrators of intimate partner violence are barred by federal law and many states' laws from possessing firearms. While such prohibitions enjoy popular support, they are sporadically and inconsistently enforced, placing the lives of survivors at risk when offenders do not voluntarily comply. Many experts, including this author, have offered legal and policy solutions to increase the likelihood that perpetrators of domestic violence will either willingly relinquish their guns or otherwise be dispossessed of them. But these proposals may have been premature.

This Article is the first to take a step back and inquire why offenders do not surrender their firearms …