Justice Thomas’s Quiet Influence on the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment Jurisprudence

In 2008, Thomas signed on to Justice Antonin Scalia’s landmark opinion holding that the Second Amendment protects the individual right to have firearms for self-defense. Supporters of gun rights believed that many gun regulations across the country would fall. But lower courts, citing a part of the District of Columbia v. Heller decision that said that the … Read more

The Meaning Behind the Supreme Court Granting Cert in NYSRPA v. Corlett

By LKB This morning, the Supreme Court announced that it has granted cert in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Corlett, the case challenging New York City’s “may issue” (read: no issue unless you are politically connected) system for granting concealed carry permits. To paraphrase a certain cognitively diminished occupant of a prominent D.C. residence, … Read more

The Vigorous Exercise of the First Amendment Can Make Second Amendment Rights More Necessary

Interpreting the Second Amendment by analogy to the First has the specific advantage of importing a well-reticulated body of First Amendment principles to help guide a Second Amendment law still in its infancy. But even more importantly, reference to the First Amendment also encourages neutral treatment of the Second Amendment, because judges as a class … Read more

Is ‘Common Sense’ Gun Control Even a Thing?

By MarkPA Back when I was in high school, we spoke simply of “gun control.” Congress passed “An Act to amend title 18, United States Code, to provide for better control of the interstate traffic in firearms”, more simply called the “Gun Control Act of 1968”. Somewhere along the way, the rhetoric changed. The phrase … Read more

The Supreme Court Confirms the Second Amendment Remains a Second Class Right

[I]n several jurisdictions throughout the country, law-abiding citizens have been barred from exercising the fundamental right to bear arms because they cannot show that they have a “justifiable need” or “good reason” for doing so. One would think that such an onerous burden on a fundamental right would warrant this Court’s review. This Court would … Read more