Akhil Amar on Heller:
In the Supreme Court issue of the Harvard Law Review, Akhil Amar has a case comment on DC v. Heller that begins in this amusing way:
Well, the show sure ended with a bang. On the last day of the Term, the Court — for the first time ever, by a single vote, over vigorous dissents, and against the weight of circuit precedent — wielded the Second Amendment to strike down a federal gun control measure and to declare a robust individual right to use firearms for self-defense. Experts began parsing District of Columbia v. Heller within hours of the Court's pronouncement. Over the ensuing weeks, sophisticated commentary blossomed in a rich profusion of blogs, wikis, posts, threads, and chats. Now, nearly five months after the decision, does anything remain to be said? In the Internet Age, does anyone still read law reviews? They seem so twentieth-century.
Yet the Justices apparently still do look at law reviews. Almost half the cases decided with signed opinions last Term cited at least one law review article. In Heller itself, the various opinions invoked over a dozen articles, including a 1940 classic from the Harvard Law Review. Indeed, last Term was a banner year not just for gun wielders like Dick Heller, but also for the editors of the Harvard Law Review. All told, the Justices cited fifteen different HLR articles — more than double the article count of any other legal periodical.