As we’ve seen, when arguing about the text, history and tradition of gun control in America, a lot of the historical carry laws that existed in the 19th century restricted concealed carry, but allowed open carry. As supporters of gun control struggle to justify the legality modern gun control laws under Bruen — including restrictions … Read more
By Lee Williams On Sept. 15 at around 10:15 p.m., Olaf Brurberg Andersen IV, was drinking Coors Light inside Pete’s Bar in Neptune Beach, Florida, when a police officer approached him. The Neptune Beach Police officer told Andersen someone had seen a handgun in his waistband. A Florida statute still on the books prohibits carrying … Read more
UC-Berkely History Professor Brian DeLay is an expert witness states frequently have turned to recently to defend unconstitutional gun control laws in light of Bruen. This week The Duke Center for Firearms law published his article, ‘Bruen & The Myth of Continuity in American Gun Culture.’ In it, he pulls a trick I’ve seen regularly … Read more
The result [of the Bruen decision], quite simply, has been legal chaos. The history of gun regulation is not so neat and clean as to yield easy historical parallels to the questions at issue today; American legal doctrine has developed considerably since the colonial and Reconstruction eras. As a result, unless the government can draw … Read more
An article at slate.com yesterday details the efforts of a brace of red-shirted Moms Demand Action members who are “scouring archives across the United States for historical firearm regulations.” What they’re actually doing, author Mark Joseph Stern says, is trying to dig up proof that Justice Clarence Thomas was wrong in his Bruen opinion when … Read more
As I have learned from my research on early gun laws, weapons regulation in early America went even further, extending to three broad types of laws, spanning nearly 300 years of American history. First, laws restricting weapons carrying were enacted extending to guns, fighting knives, and clubs throughout the 1800s. These laws criminalized concealed weapons … Read more
Bryan Range pleaded guilty in 1995 to food stamp fraud in Pennsylvania. He served three years probation, paid restitution and a small fine. He also lost his gun rights. That’s because “his conviction was classified as a Pennsylvania misdemeanor punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment. That conviction precludes Range from possessing a firearm because … Read more
Resistance. We use this term in different senses when discussing lower court decisions. One, courts might resist the fact of the Bruen decision itself or they might read the decision in a manner that resists adopting the logical conclusions of the decision’s methodology. Resistance can also manifest itself in a desultory or bad faith application … Read more
Several judges have expressed concern about the effects of the Supreme Court’s [Bruen] decision. In Indiana, Judge Robert L. Miller wrote in one opinion issued in a gun case that he had “an earnest hope” that he had misunderstood the Supreme Court ruling. “If not, most of the body of law Congress has developed to … Read more
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