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The statue "Authority of Law" by artist James Earle Fraser is seen outside the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C., in 2010.
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The Supreme Court's 2nd Amendment Mistake

Consequences mattered to the Founders—and that meant early American judges upheld major gun restrictions.
Gun safety advocates rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2019
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What the Supreme Court Gets Wrong About the Second Amendment

Government, wrote Alexander Hamilton, should substitute “the mild influence” of the law for “the violent and sanguinary agency of the sword.”
Gun rights advocates holding Second Amendment rally at which police officer Dick Heller spoke, at the State Capitol in Frankfort, Kentucky, January 31, 2020.

The Remaking of the Second Amendment

The Supreme Court’s expanding interpretation of the Second Amendment threatens longstanding democratic authority to enact gun safety measures.
Revolutionary War reenactment.

The Second-Amendment Case for Gun Control

It's a myth that the Founders opposed the regulation of deadly weapons.

The Second Amendment Does Not Transcend All Others

Its text and context don’t ensure an unlimited individual right to bear any kind and number of weapons by anyone.

Gun Anarchy and the Unfree State

The real history of the Second Amendment.

How the NRA Rewrote the Second Amendment

The Founders never intended to create an unregulated individual right to a gun.
Lithograph of James Madison from Portrait and Biographical Album of Washtenaw County, Michigan, 1891, Wikimedia.

The Founders’ Muddled Legacy on the Right to Bear Arms Is Killing Us

A case of 18th-century politicking has stymied our ability to deal with a 21st-century crisis.

Battleground America

One nation, under the gun.

The Secret History of Guns

What gun regulations meant to the founders, and why the Black Panthers are the true pioneers of today's pro-gun movement.

Dead or Alive: Originalism as Popular Constitutionalism in Heller

Was the 2008 Heller decision a victory for originalism or a living Constitution?

To Keep and Bear Arms

A challenge to the "Standard Model" scholars who hold that the Second Amendment protects individual gun rights.
U.S. Constitution

This Book Could Change the Way Conservatives Read the Constitution

“Against Constitutional Originalism” by historian Jonathan Gienapp could fundamentally reorient how we understand America’s founding.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio riding in the back of a convertible car painted like an American flag.

Are Sheriffs Above the Law?

Many vignettes of sheriffs in action are dramatic and alarming. But how representative are they?
Chief Justice John Roberts.

The Supreme Court Has Murdered the Constitution

America’s founding document is now an all-but-meaningless scrap of paper. Happy Fourth!
A photograph of an AR-15 rifle, a pistol, and a knife in camoflage print, as well as bullets and a pair of gloves.

Give Your Mom a Gun

America’s favorite gun.
A diagram of the parts of a flintlock pistol.

Bad Facts, Bad Law

In a recent Supreme Court oral argument about disarming domestic abusers, originalism itself was put to the test.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Conservatives’ Favorite Legal Doctrine Crashes Into Reality

Originalism is all the rage on the right, but a gun case at the Supreme Court is exposing its absurdity—even to the conservative justices.
Collage showing people gathering at the site of school shootings.

The Second Generation of School Shootings

The fear that overtook us that day in 1988 was unfamiliar to most Americans. Now all too many know how it feels.
Revolutionary War reenactors shooting muskets.

“Originalist” Arguments Against Gun Control Get U.S. History Completely Wrong

Gun control is actually an American tradition.
A picture of the front of the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court’s Faux ‘Originalism’

The conservative Supreme Court's favorite judicial philosophy requires a very, very firm grasp of history — one that none of the justices seem to possess.
Contemplation of Justice statue

The Supreme Court’s Selective Memory

The Court’s striking down of a New York gun law relies on a fundamentally anti-democratic historical record that excludes women and people of color.
A picture of armed militias

What the Term “Gun Culture” Misses About White Supremacy

The rise of tactical gun culture among civilians reveals a new front in the U.S. battle against nativist authoritarianism.
Capitol rotunda dome.

The Changing Same of U.S. History

Like the 1619 Project, two new books on the Constitution reflect a vigorous debate about what has changed in the American past—and what hasn’t.

How the Modern NRA Was Born at the Border

A conversation between a historian and the creator of a new documentary short about NRA leader Harlon Carter.

The Supreme Court’s Worst Decision of My Tenure

DC v. Heller recognized an individual right to possess a firearm under the Constitution. Here’s why the case was wrongly decided.

Necessary to the Security of a Free State

On the history of the second amendment, white militias, and border vigilantism.

Bearing Arms vs. Hunting Bears

The persistence of a mythic second amendment in contemporary Constitutional culture.

Gun Studies Syllabus

Imagine a class on gun control activism. Here's what its syllabus might look like.

The Lessons of a School Shooting – in 1853

How a now-forgotten classroom murder inflamed the national gun argument.

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