The U.S. Supreme Court released its opinion Thursday on the gun rights case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. The following comments are available to use in your coverage.
Quotes:
“The Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen marks a significant expansion of the Second Amendment right,” says Duke University law professor Jacob D. Charles, who is also executive director of the Duke Center for Firearms Law.
“In vindicating an individual’s right to carry loaded guns in public without any showing of special need, the court’s decision is likely to call into question the half dozen other state concealed carry permitting laws similar to New York’s. Though these constitute a minority of states, a sizeable portion of the population — around 25% of Americans — live in jurisdictions with these more restrictive laws.”
“The court’s decision is also profoundly important for the way it directs lower courts to evaluate Second Amendment claims. It mandates that text and history take center stage in assessing whether gun laws are constitutional, making irrelevant conventional questions in constitutional litigation about the empirical effectiveness of specific regulations and how tailored a law is to meet a given government interest.”
“That mandate to focus on history is likely to make all currently settled issues of Second Amendment law in the federal courts of appeals subject to reopening.”
Bio:
Jacob D. Charles is executive director of the Duke Center for Firearms Law and lecturing fellow at Duke University School of Law. His primary research interests include the legal regulation of state and private violence, Second Amendment doctrine and theory, and the place of guns in the criminal legal system.
https://law.duke.edu/fac/charlesj/
For additional comment, contact Jake Charles at:
jacob.charles@law.duke.edu
Other experts available to discuss the case:
Joseph Blocher
Duke law professor and faculty co-director, Duke Center for Firearms Law
blocher@law.duke.edu
Darrell A. H. Miller
Duke law professor, co-director, Duke Center for Firearms Law
dmiller@law.duke.edu
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Media Contact:
Jeannie Naujeck
(615) 414-1028; jeannie.naujeck@duke.edu
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Duke experts on a variety of other topics can be found here.
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