gun control

The Real Story Behind the Expulsion of the Two Black Members of the "Tennessee Three"

by Jemar Tisby

The disproportionate response of the Tennessee House's majority—the expulsion of two Black members for the violation of decorum rules during a gun control protest—echoes the efforts of the so-called "Redeemers" of the Reconstruction era to reassert white supremacy through expulsions. 

The Tennessee Three's Ordeal Reflects Historic White Supremacy

by Elwood Watson

A Tennessee professor reflects on the recent events in the state capitol. 

SCOTUS Decision Means Today's Gun Cases Require Experts on 1790s Weaponry

Legal historians Saul Cornell, Jennifer Tucker and others are in high demand as a legal consultant after the Bruen decision elevated the historical meaning of gun laws to importance in the judicial process. 

We Don't Need to Pretend Clarence Thomas Can Read the Founders' Minds

by Heidi Li Feldman and Dahlia Lithwick

The approach to "original intent" laid out in recent gun control rulings imagines the founders as capable only of the most cramped and limited understanding of the function of law in a society, argue a legal scholar and veteran court reporter. 

After Bruen: One Nation, Under Guns

by Ryan Busse

"As bad as America’s gun-violence problem is, it could be about to get much worse," says former gun industry insider turned whistleblower. The selective reading of the historical record advanced by Justice Thomas's opinion would force judges to play historian to decide cases, destabilizing gun law in many ways. 

Can the Techniques of Antismoking Ads Work for Gun Violence?

Antismoking PSAs shifted attention from individual smokers to the tobacco companies profiting from selling dangerous products. Can the same work to reduce the appeal of guns? 

Judge Laurence Silberman Dies—Do His Latter Years Make the Case for Judicial Reform?

A legal observer suggests the influential judge's reputation might have benefitted from judicial term limits, as his penchant for judicial restraint took a hard turn toward activism in decisions on gun control and public pronouncements about confederate monuments. 

The NRA's Amicus Brief Machine

Lax disclosure rules about who funds the groups filing amicus briefs means that the NRA has been able to use its wealth to flood the courts with briefs that exaggerate the strength of its radical pro-gun positions, says historian Patrick J. Charles. 

Originalism is Just Selective History

by David H. Gans

"This is a Court that insists it is following history and tradition where they lead, while cherry-picking the history it cares about to reach conservative results."

The Christian Right's History is Bad Scholarship, But Great SCOTUS Lobbying

by Lauren R. Kerby

Two consequential court rulings hinged on historical interpretation of abortion and gun rights. The court's majority borrowed this history from the religious right's campaign to craft a historical narrative to justify white Protestant nationalism.

Dark Skies Over SCOTUS

by James D. Zirin

If the Supreme Court justices don't want to be perceived as partisan hacks, the latest rulings aren't helping their cause. 

On the Historical Dilettantes Practicing Originalism

by Joshua Zeitz

"The functional problem with originalism is that it requires a very, very firm grasp of history — a grasp that none of the nine justices, and certainly few of their 20-something law clerks, freshly minted from J.D. programs, possess."

Adam Winkler on Thomas's Historical Cherry-Picking on Gun Rights

Isaac Chotiner interviews law professor and legal historian Adam Winkler on the selective use of history in the New York state gun rights decision. 

History Suggests Gun Control Will be an Uphill Fight

by Joanna Paxton Federico

The National Rifle Association has succeeded in blocking popular gun control legislation since it overcame strong public support in the 1930s for national handgun registration in FDR's "New Deal for Crime." 

Other Countries Figured Out How to Reduce Gun Massacres

Australia, Britain and Canada took decisive and successful steps to reduce mass shootings since the 1990s. 

Why Andrew Jackson Believed in Gun Control

by Anders Walker

Andrew Jackson loved guns, but his correspondence with John C. Calhoun from 1818 shows that he believed that the Second Amendment didn't guarantee an individual right to own them and that regulation was key to public safety. 

There Oughtta Be a Law

by Jim Zirin

A veteran prosecutor weighs in on how American law must erase the distinction between "fully automatic" and "semiautomatic" weapons and ban the weapons that are used in massacre after massacre.

Forget "Ghost Guns" and other Media Panics. Gun Capitalism is the Underlying Problem of a Violent Society

by Andrew C. McKevitt

A long series of moral panics over the dangers of specific guns (and their imagined users) has hidden the real danger to Americans: the profitability (and legality) of selling deadly weapons.

Will SCOTUS Force Us All to Find Out How Polite an Armed Society Will Be?

by Jim Zirin

The Supreme Court's oral arguments in a challenge to New York State's gun laws suggest the court is willing to defy precedent and history and assume a power that the Constitution reserves to the people and states, forcing all communities to accept the concealed carrying of firearms.

Why are Medieval Weapons at the Center of a Supreme Court Case?

by Jennifer Tucker

The history and traditions of English law inform American judicial interpetation today, including efforts to discern the functional meaning of the Second Amendment. A group of historians has briefed the Court that restricting dangerous weapons in public is long-established.