Chicago law bans gun possession without a license, and provides that licenses may not be issued to anyone who has “been convicted by a court in any jurisdiction of … an unlawful use of a weapon that is a firearm.” Shawn Gowder has a misdemeanor conviction for “unlawful use of a weapon” based on simple […]
Archive | Guns
Weapons Laws of the Russian Federation
By David Kopel on June 12, 2012 4:05 pm in Guns, International Human Rights Law, Non-Firearms Arms, Registration, Right to carry, Russia, Uncategorized
For those of who have been waiting for an English translation of Russia’s arms statutes, your wait is over. Independence Institute intern Margot van Loon is the author of the new Issue Paper, Weapons Laws of the Russian Federation. Here is a synopsis: No permission or registration is needed to purchase and carry chemical defense […]
Podcast on the creation of the Second Amendment
By David Kopel on June 8, 2012 5:55 pm in Constitutional History, Constitutional Law, Guns, Militia, Originalism
For my co-authored textbook Firearms Law and the Second Amendment, I’ve been doing a series of podcasts on each chapter. Now available is the podcast for Chapter 4, which covers the Philadelphia Convention, the ratification debates, the creation of Bill of Rights, and St. George Tucker’s contemporaneous exposition of the original meaning of the Second […]
Kids’ Birthday Party at the Shooting Range
WFAA-TV reports: [A new gun range will have two rooms for] birthday parties for kids. “One of the reasons we’re doing this is, when I had my boys, I didn’t have a place to take them and educate them about how to handle a gun safely,” Prince explained. “I really want families to be able […]
D-Day thoughts
In a column from 2000, I examined what military historians suggest might have happened if the D-Day landings had been repulsed. Or what if they had taken place in 1943 instead of 1944? The short answers are that if D-Day had failed, Stalin would have ended up occupying almost all of German, which would have […]
Public opinion about the National Rifle Association
In April, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found that the National Rifle Association was viewed favorably by 68% of Americans, and unfavorably by 32%. Unlike most polls, the Reuters poll apparently did not allow “unsure” or “undecided” as a choice. In each of the demographics which the poll provided–Republicans, Democrats, independents, whites, and blacks–the NRA was viewed favorably […]
The Great Gun Control War of the 20th Century — And its Lessons for Gun Laws Today
By David Kopel on May 31, 2012 2:37 pm in Constitutional History, Constitutional Law, Fourteenth Amendment, Guns, History, McDonald v. City of Chicago, Politics, Popular Constitutionalism, Registration, Right to carry, Supreme Court
This is the subject of my article in a forthcoming symposium issue of the Fordham Urban Law Journal. The article details the political, cultural, social, and legal battles over gun control from the 1920s to the early 21st century. Here’s the abstract: A movement to ban handguns began in the 1920s in the Northeast, led […]
“More People Die from Guns Than Car Accidents in Michigan”
So states a Detroit Free Press op-ed headline. Here’s an excerpt from the op-ed itself: Michigan is one of 10 states in which gun deaths now outpace motor vehicle deaths, according to a study released Thursday by the Washington, D.C.-based Violence Policy Center. But don’t expect the from-my-cold-dead-hands crowd to embrace the center’s conclusion that […]
Gun Forfeiture and the Defendant Who “Remarked How Easy It Would Be for Someone to Shoot the President”
From today’s State v. Brek (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. May 22, 2012): In October 2009, defendant worked as a security guard for a private company at Newark Liberty International Airport. Vice–President Biden had recently flown into the airport, and President Obama was scheduled to arrive the next day on Air Force One. Defendant and […]
Kopel vs. Ted Nugent
My co-authored law school textbook Firearms Law & the Second Amendment; Regulation, Rights, and Policy (Aspen Casebook Series) is currently battling with Ted Nugent’s God, Guns & Rock’N’Roll for #1 in Amazon.com sales rankings in the “Gun Control” category. We held the lead a few hours ago, but The Nuge has clawed his way back to #1 […]
New textbook: Firearms Law and the Second Amendment: Regulation, Rights and Policy
By David Kopel on May 15, 2012 4:32 pm in Casebooks, Guns, McDonald v. City of Chicago, Militia, Non-Firearms Arms, Registration, Right to carry
The first law school textbook on the Second Amendment is now available from Aspen Publishers. The co-author are Nick Johnson (Fordham), Michael O’Shea (Oklahoma City), George Mocsary (Connecticut), and me. Here’s the publisher’s page for the textbook, from which professors can request a free review copy. The book is also available for civilian purchase from […]
How the British Gun Control Program Precipitated the American Revolution
By David Kopel on May 14, 2012 2:17 pm in Constitutional History, Guns, History, Militia, Religion, Religious Freedom
I posted a draft of this article a few months ago, and I thank VC readers for some helpful comments in improving it. The final version has been published by the Charleston Law Review, and is available on SSRN. Here’s the abstract: This Article chronologically reviews the British gun control which precipitated the American Revolution: the […]
Tenth Circuit Upholds Ban on Gun Possession by Illegal Aliens
From United States v. Huitron-Guizar (10th Cir. May 7, 2012) (thanks to Prof. Doug Berman (Sentencing Law & Policy) for the pointer): We applied “intermediate” scrutiny in Reese, 627 F.3d at 802, which involved a Second Amendment challenge by a citizen to 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), the provision forbidding firearms to those subject to a […]
Cinco de Mayo: An all-American holiday
UCLA Professor David Hayes-Bautista explains the 1862 origins, an all-American holiday created by Mexican-Americans, who saw the Mexican victory against the French attempt to destroy Mexican democracy as another front in the Union’s battle against the Slave Power. The Franco-Mexican war continued until 1867, and American firearms played an important role in the liberation of […]
Kentucky Employees May Not Be Fired for Lawfully Storing Guns in Their Cars
That’s what Kentucky statutes provide, and today the Kentucky Supreme Court applied this rule in Mitchell v. University of Kentucky (Ky. Apr. 26, 2012). There was something of a complication because the defendant was a university, and state law provides universities with generally broad authority to restrict weapons on their property. But the court concluded […]