The Latest Breaking News from Heller

As mass killings stoke calls for reform, legal fights over the historical basis for gun rights have gone into overdrive.

[From the editor: I'm delighted to report that Stephen Halbrook will have a new column here on the blog, Second Amendment Roundup, which will offer a technical focus on recent Second Amendment cases. Halbrook is both a prominent gun rights lawyer and a leading legal scholar: He argued Printz v.…

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul filed the brief to answer challenges to the assault weapon ban, arguing the nation’s founding fathers owned guns that could only shoot a single shot before reloading — proving assault weapons weren’t in “common use” at the time.

About the same as other rifles

Guidance for judicial examination of legal history.

Judge James Ho concurs, adding "I write separately to point out that our Founders firmly believed in the fundamental role of government in protecting citizens against violence, as well as the individual right to keep and bear arms—and that these two principles are not inconsistent but entirely compatible with one…

CHICAGO — In his closing remarks before a vote on a sweeping firearms ban, Illinois Senate President Don Harmon pushed back at critics who contended the prohibitions would violate the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

“It seems highly likely there would be justices inclined to strike down the law,” said Eric Ruben, a law professor and expert on gun issues. “Whether there are five is another question.”

From U.S. v. Reyna, decided yesterday by Judge Robert Miller, Jr. (N.D. Ind.) (for a case reaching the opposite result, see this post): The Heller Court made clear that the Second Amendment excludes "those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes." This limit on the Second Amendment…

In historical inquiry, reasoning by analogy is a commonplace task for any lawyer or judge.

Courts, not “experts,” should say what the law is.