Professor Jacob Charles Cited in United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois in United States v. Sims

Professor Jacob D. Charles's forthcoming Duke Law Journal article, "The Dead Hand of a Silent Past: Bruen, Gun Rights, and the Shackles of History," (SSRN) is cited in the opinion of the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois case, United States v. Sims. The case involves a constitutional challenge to a firearms restriction.

Excerpt from United States v. Sims:

The parties should freely “cast a wider net and provide more detail about whatever history they rely on.”1 Id. at 1024. They also should freely employ the expert services of historians and historiographers. See Jacob D. Charles, The Dead Hand of a Silent Past, 73 Duke L.J. (forthcoming 2023) (manuscript at 69–70) (on file with author) (arguing that expert historians “can help inform a judge about how complicated and contested the historical landscape can be”) ...

The complete opinion may be found at United States v. Sims