Professor Jacob Charles Cited in Firearms Cases in United States District Court Eastern District of Texas and United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Professor Jacob D. Charles is cited in two recent court opinions in the United States District Court Eastern District of Texas and in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Both cases involve challenges to firearms regulations.
In the Eastern District of Texas case, United States v. Allam, the defendant raised a Second Amendment challenge after being charged with possession of a firearm within in a school zone.
Excerpts from United States v. Allam
The Supreme Court “gave a name—‘sensitive places’—to the idea that certain locations (as do certain people, arms, and activities) fall outside the boundaries of the Second Amendment.” Joseph Blocher, Jacob D. Charles & Darrell A.H. Miller, “A Map Is Not The Territory”: The Theory and Future of Sensitive Places Doctrine, N.Y.U. L. Rev. Online (forthcoming 2023) (manuscript at 3), SSRN [hereinafter “A Map Is Not The Territory”].
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A “nuanced approach” requires the court to “broaden its conception of what constitutes an ‘analogue’ and focus its attention on the justification for, and burden imposed by it.” Antonyuk v. Hochul, 639 F.Supp.3d 232, 296-97 (N.D.N.Y. 2022), reconsideration denied sub nom. Antonyuk v. Nigrelli, No. 122CV0986GTSCFH, 2022 WL 19001454 (N.D.N.Y. Dec. 13, 2022); see Jacob D. Charles, The Dead Hand of a Silent Past: Bruen, Gun Rights, and the Shackles of History, Duke L. J., (forthcoming) (manuscript at 56-57), SSRN. Accordingly, the court must look more broadly to historical analogues that contain a “why” or “how” similar to that of § 922(q)(2)(A), even if not directly relating to school safety.
The complete opinion may be found at United States v. Allam
In the Second Circuit case, Antonuk; Hardaway; Christian; Spencer v. Chiumento, four cases heard and decided in tandem by a three-judge panel, the plaintiffs raised First and Second Amendment challenges to provisions of New York laws regulating the public carriage of firearms.
Excerpt from Antonuk; Hardaway; Christian; Spencer v. Chiumento
Third, the absence of a distinctly similar historical regulation in the presented record, though undoubtedly relevant, can only prove so much. Legislatures past and present have not generally legislated to their constitutional limits. Reasoning from historical silence is thus risky; it is not necessarily the case that, if no positive legislation from a particular place is in the record, it must be because the legislators there deemed such a regulation inconsistent with the right to bear arms.10
10 See Jacob D. Charles, The Dead Hand of a Silent Past: Bruen, Gun Rights, and the Shackles of History, 73 DUKE L.J. 67, 153 (2023) (criticizing such an inference because it “elevates mere unregulated conduct to the status of inviolate constitutional right”).
The complete opinion may be found at Antonuk; Hardaway; Christian; Spencer v. Chiumento