Under the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in NYSRPA v. Bruen, the constitutionality of a modern gun regulation depends upon whether a court finds the regulation to comport with history and tradition. But Bruen’s novel test raises important and pressing questions. How should judges approach a historical record that may be incomplete or misleading because of the way it was compiled? Is it possible to offer publicly intelligible legal reasons for decisions within Bruen’s historical-analogical framework? On March 6, 2024 Duke Law Journal and the Duke Center for Firearms Law hosted a panel, moderated by Kyle Gantz, J.D. ’24, where Professor Darrell A. H. Miller and Andrew Willinger, Executive Director of the Duke Center for Firearms Law, engaged these questions and charted the future course of Second Amendment jurisprudence. Their discussion also focused on their recent Essays in Duke Law Journal Online: “Historical Analogy and the Role Morality of Reason-Giving,” by Professor Miller, and “Missing Pieces: Gaps in the Record of Early American Decisional Law,” by Andrew Willinger.

View a recording of their discussion here: 

DLJ thanks the Duke Center for Firearms Law for cosponsoring this event!