Postscript: The Supreme Court, Concealed Carry, and How Your Laws Might Change

New Books in Public Policy

An earlier Postscript explained what was at stake for concealed carry laws in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court – and guessed at what the oral arguments might reveal. Now that arguments have been heard in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, three legal scholars join the podcast to analyze the oral argument. Even if you are not a SCOTUS junky -- this conversation is important because 80 million (or 25% of) Americans may have their democratically crafted gun laws overturned by the decision of 9 justices.

Jacob D. Charles is the Executive Director & Lecturing Fellow at the Center for Firearms Law at Duke University School of Law. His work on the Second Amendment has appeared in numerous law journals and “Securing Gun Rights By Statute: The Right To Keep and Bear Arms Outside the Constitution,” (forthcoming, University of Michigan Law Review) interrogates the non-constitutional gun rights that create broad powers for gun owners beyond the Second Amendment. His extensive public-facing scholarship includes a new piece in the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage, “Supreme Court justices sounded suspicious of New York’s gun law. Here’s what might come next.”

Eric Ruben is an assistant professor of Law at SMU Dedman School of Law and a Brennan Center fellow. Working at the intersection of criminal law, legal ethics, and the Second Amendment, his scholarship has been published in law reviews such as California, Duke and Georgetown as well as public facing outlets like The Atlantic, New York Times, Vox, Jurist, The Conversation, and Scotusblog. He organized -- and contributed scholarship to the 2021 Brennan Center Report, Protests, Insurrection, and the Second Amendment.

Joseph Blocher is the Lanty L. Smith ’67 Professor of Law at Duke University School of Law and one of the attorneys who helped write the brief for DC in Heller. He co-authored The Positive Second Amendment: Rights, Regulation, and the Future of Heller (Cambridge University Press, 2018) with Darrell Miller in 2018 (New Books interview here). Among his numerous law review articles is “When Guns Threaten the Public Sphere: A New Account of Public Safety Regulation Under Heller” (Northwestern University Law Review, Vol 116, 2021) in which he and Reva Siegel interrogate the impact of gun rights on free speech. Recently, he has been a guest on the podcast Strict Scrutiny, contributed to the New York Times and NPR reporting of the case.

Joseph and Eric’s recent op ed, “No, courts don’t treat the Second Amendment as a ‘second-class right’: The latest gun-rights case may hinge on some conservatives’ sense of victimhood” just appeared in the Washington Post.

Susan Liebell is Dirk Warren '50 Professor of Political Science at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.

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