The AP reports that Steve Sarich — who “runs CannaCare, an organization that claims 7,000 members in the state,” which among other things “provides patients with marijuana clones or starter plants and delivers about 50 patients a week with usable marijuana” — has been told by the King County Sheriff’s Office that he may not […]
Archive | Guns
Unexpected Flight Delay => Hotel Stay => Criminal Prosecution for Gun Possession
An unfortunate story, detailed in Revell v. Port Authority (3d Cir. 2010): Gregg C. Revell was flying from Salt Lake City to Allentown, Pennsylvania, via Minneapolis and Newark. He had an unloaded gun legally checked in his luggage, which was supposed to meet him at Allentown. Supposed to. In fact, the flight to Newark was […]
How Many Global Deaths from Arms?
That’s the title of a new article which I have just submitted en masse to law reviews. [Note: the full text hasn’t yet appeared on SSRN. So here’s a link to the full text via Berkeley Electronic Press.] Here’s the abstract: Currently, the United Nations is drafting an Arms Trade Treaty to impose strict controls on […]
Second Circuit Due Process Victory for Connecticut Carry Permit Holders
From Kuck v. Danaher, decided yesterday. [Note: Before commenting, please click on “continue reading” to read the rest of the opinion and the UPDATE at the end where I explain what I think likely happened here.] [M. Peter] Kuck’s claims arise from his efforts to renew his permit to carry a firearm with the Connecticut […]
Is the tax power infinite?
By David Kopel on March 22, 2010 8:05 pm in Commerce Clause, Congress, Constitutional History, Economic LIberties, Federalism, Guns, Health Care, Necessary and Proper, Politics, Supreme Court, Taxes
One source of the impending constitutional challenge to the Obamacare mandate is that exceeds the enumerated powers granted to Congress under Article I, section 8. For example, that the people’s grant to power to Congress to regulate commerce among the several states does not include the power to compel people to engage in commerce. Jack […]
Bloggers: Both side critical of party chairs. Disagree somewhat, but not entirely, on health care chances, and Obama as a one-term President
This week, the National Journal poll of political bloggers moves to a new spot on the NJ website, “The Hotline Blogometer.” Besides the weekly poll, the Blogometer contains a daily report on what leading liberal and conservative political bloggers are writing about the controversies of the moment. In this week’s poll, bloggers were asked “On […]
The Second and Sixth Amendments
A puzzle for constitutional law buffs: I just read a recent case which explored the interaction between the Second Amendment and part of the Sixth Amendment. What is that interaction? I realize, of course, that one can dream up all sorts of theories for how any two constitutional provisions might interact — but I’m looking […]
“Reasonable regulation” and McDonald
The following exchange took place during James Feldman’s oral argument today, on behalf of the Chicago government, in McDonald v. Chicago: JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Would you be happy if we incorporated it and said, reasonable regulation is part of the incorporation? And how do we do that? MR. FELDMAN: Well, there is the reasonable regulation standard, […]
Why United States v. Miller was so badly written
Before District of Columbia v. Heller, the 1939 decision United States v. Miller was the Supreme Court’s leading decision on the Second Amendment. Miller was, to put it mildly, obliquely written. As Michael O’Shea has detailed, the opinion seems mainly concerned with whether the gun in question was a militia-type weapon, which would suggest that […]
Philip Hamburger’s New SSRN Paper Provides Evidence Against Incorporation
By Jim Lindgren on February 26, 2010 1:50 pm in Constitutional History, Guns, History, Supreme Court
One of the issues in the McDonald gun rights case before the US Supreme Court is whether the Privileges or Immunities clause of the 14th Amendment was intended to incorporate the Second Amendment. In a new paper available on SSRN, historian Philip Hamburger argues that incorporation was not intended: What was meant by the Fourteenth […]
Goodwin Liu on the Second Amendment
By David Kopel on February 25, 2010 8:58 pm in Congress, Constitutional Theory, Fourteenth Amendment, Guns, Judicial Nominations, Legal Professor
Boalt Hall Associate Dean Goodwin H. Liu has been nominated to serve on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Some readers and Senators may be interested in his viewpoint on Second Amendment and other constitutional issues related to firearms policy. So here’s an excerpt from his article Separation Anxiety: Congress, The Courts, And The Constitution, 91 Georgetown Law […]
The Second Amendment and Domestic Violence Misdemeanants
The day after the Seventh Circuit agrees to rehear en banc a panel’s earlier decision in U.S. v. Skoien on this subject, the Fourth Circuit has decided to follow Skoien, in U.S. v. Chester (4th Cir. Feb. 23, 2010) (surprisingly unpublished): We agree in part with the Seventh Circuit’s approach to this unchartered realm of […]
Seventh Circuit Will Rehear U.S. v. Skoien En Banc
That’s the case in which a unanimous Seventh Circuit panel vacated — on Second Amendment grounds — a conviction for gun possession by a misdemeanant convicted of domestic violence, and remanded for further proceedings to determine whether the government could show a “reasonable fit” “between this important objective [the government’s interest in protecting against domestic-violence […]
The story of the armed community organizers
A few weeks ago, I linked to a picture of civil rights activist John Salter being attacked by a mob during a lunch counter sit-in during the 1960s. I also linked to a newspaper op-ed in which Salter explained how he and other civil rights workers used firearms for protection from Klansmen and other terrorists—when […]
State court standards of review for the right to arms
That’s that title of a forthcoming article in a Santa Clara Law Review symposium, by Clayton Cramer and me. We examine, in detail, scores of important cases, from Bliss v. Commonwealth in 1822 up to the present. We explain which cases can provide useful guidance to modern courts which must interpret the Second Amendment (and which […]