As I read 18 U.S.C. § 922(b)(1), it’s illegal for an professional gun dealer — such as a typical gun store — to sell a handgun to an 18-to-20-year-old. But it’s quite legal for a nonprofessional to sell it to the 18-to-20-year-old, and for the 18-to-20-year-old to buy it, even if the nonprofessional knows or […]
Archive | Guns
The Bernardine Dohrn of the early 20th century: The terrorist professor at U of Texas law school
By David Kopel on May 24, 2010 3:56 pm in Academia, Congress, Constitutional History, Counter-Terrorism Policy, Criminal Law, Economic LIberties, Education, Guns, History, Law Schools, Legal Professor, Militia, Rehabilitating Lochner
My DU colleague Thomas Russell, who used to teach at the University of Texas Law school, has a written a paper, available on SSRN, which urges the University of Texas Law School to rename Simkins Hall, a law and graduate male student dormitory named for William Stewart Simkins. Simkins taught equity, contracts, procedure, and related topics at UT for […]
President Calderon’s claim about “assault weapons”
Examined in this blog post by my Heritage Foundation co-author Ted Bromund. Our Background about the CIFTA gun control convention, which President Obama has urged Congress to ratify as a favor to Mexico, is here.
“He Grabbed a Rifle, Held It Up, and Looked Right at Me.”
“He was chuckling but there was no smile. ‘If I put this up your — ha! — your butt — ha ha! — you’ll find out how effective this is!”” That’s Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, responding to a Chicago Reader reporter’s query about whether Chicago’s gun control has been effective. (The reporter states in his […]
Violent Misdemeanants, the Right to Bear Arms, and the Right to Vote
Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook analogized the individual right to bear arms to the individual right to vote, and reasoned that, given that states may deny misdemeanants the right to vote, they should be equally able to deny them the right to bear arms. I don’t think that analogy quite works. The right to vote, of […]
Seventh Circuit En Banc Argument in the Second Amendment / Violent Misdemeanants Case (Skoien)
The Seventh Circuit en banc in United States v. Skoien took place today, and is available online. This is the case where the panel held that 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9), which bans gun possession by people convicted of misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence, might be too broad: Applying intermediate scrutiny, we ask whether the government […]
The OAS Firearms Convention Is Incompatible with American Liberties
By David Kopel on May 19, 2010 12:47 pm in Freedom of Speech, Guns, International Law, Registration, Regulation
Just published on-line this morning is the above Backgrounder from the Heritage Foundation. My coauthors are Theodore Bromund and Ray Walser, of Heritage. We argue that the CIFTA gun control convention, which was drafted by the Organization of American States, and which President Obama has urged the Senate to ratify, would harm First and Second […]
NRA Convention report
The NRA’s annual members meeting was held last weekend, in Charlotte, North Carolina. Since I’ve been going to these events for the last two decades, I’d like to offer a report on how the Convention has changed over the years, and some thoughts about the NRA’s past and present.
Guns and Mental Illness
Title 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(4) criminalizes gun possession by (among others) anyone “who has been committed to a mental institution.” This includes relatively brief commitments, and from 1992 until 2007 this covered anyone who had ever been so committed, with no opportunity for relief. Title 18 U.S.C. § 925(c) did authorize the Secretary of Treasury […]
Licensed carry now allowed at Colorado community colleges
New policy, just announced. More fruits of the great work of Mountain States Legal Foundation Jim Manley, with their win in Students for Concealed Carry on Campus v. Regents of the University of Colorado. Colorado is joining Utah in allowing licensed carry at all state higher education campuses. As I detailed in Connecticut Law Review […]
My own Kagan experience
By Sasha Volokh on May 11, 2010 4:43 pm in Executive Branch, Federalist Society, Guns, Judicial Nominations, Kagan Nomination, Law Schools, Supreme Court
Elie Mystal, who graduated from law school at the same time as I did, has bad memories of Elena Kagan from when he had her for Civ Pro as a 1L. [UPDATE: Read The Whole Thing, the commenters remind me to say.] For what it’s worth, here are my own impressions of Elena Kagan: I […]
Clinton staff: “We are taking the law and bending it as far as we can to capture a whole new class of guns.” Kagan wrote the Clinton ban on gun imports.
The Chicago Tribune‘s James Oliphant reports: “According to records at the William J. Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Ark., she also drafted an executive order restricting the importation of certain semiautomatic assault rifles.” When ban was announced, Clinton staffer Jose Cerda stated, “We are taking the law and bending it as far as we can to […]
Colorado State University board rescinds ban on licensed firearms carry
The ban at the Fort Collins and Pueblo campuses, had been scheduled to take effect on August 1. The prospective ban had been imposed last winter, by a unanimous vote of the Governing Board, and against the express vote of the Student Senate. Congratulations to Rocky Mountain Gun Owners for bringing the case. As the […]
State court standards of review for the right to arms
Forthcoming in a symposium issue of the Santa Clara Law Review, final version here. This 108-page article, which I wrote with Clayton Cramer, surveys the leading state constitution right to arms cases, from the Early Republic to the present. The article examines the various standards of review that state courts have used in examining gun […]
Mayor Daley and other Mayors: Seek “redress against the gun industry” in the World Court
April 27 was the tenth annual “Richard J. Daley Global Cities Forum,” held in Chicago. Over a hundred mayors and other local government leaders assembled to discuss global issues. As reported in the Chicago Sun-Times, “Daley convinced more than a dozen of his counterparts from around the world to approve a resolution urging ‘redress against […]