Clayton E. Cramer, College of Western Idaho, has published The National Firearms Act and Perceived Constitutional Limitations in 1934. Here is the abstract. Laws regulating firearms based on their lethality as "weapons of mass destruction" have no Founding Era equivalent and such weapons were for sale to civilians. They were common enough to be subject to fire safety regulations. How long did this Framing Era understanding persist? What implications does this have for so-called "assault weapons" and machine gun regulation? When Congress held hearings on the National Firearms Act (1934), discus ..read more

Neil Siegel, Duke University School of Law, has published Balkin Amid Balkanization: Constitutional Construction, The Uses Of History, And Interpretive Discretion In A Divided Country as Duke Law School Public Law & Legal Theory Series No. 2025-14. Here is the abstract. Professor Jack Balkin's Memory and Authority is a good book by a great constitutional theorist, but it gives me some pause. Balkin's account of legitimate constitutional construction is so capacious and seemingly accepting of a results orientation that it may be difficult to discern when someone is doing it wrong. Balkin re ..read more

James E. Pfander and Mary Zakowski, both of Northwestern University School of Law, are publishing Non-Party Protective Relief in the Early Republic: Judicial Power to Annul Letters Patent in volume 128 of the Northwestern University Law Review. Here is the abstract. Much of the debate over the constitutionality of universal or non-party protective relief in the federal court system has focused on lessons drawn from historical practice. But with its emphasis on injunctive relief, the literature has largely ignored forms of adjudication that arose outside the courts of equity and led to judgment ..read more

Lara Bucholski, Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, and Christopher Murphy, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law, have published Kinder und Küche: Women, Marriage, and Children in Nazi Germany as Max Planck Lawcast, Episode 22. Here is the abstract. During the years that it was in power, the Nazi regime made far-reaching changes to German civil law, especially family law. Marriage was understood as a societal 'service', children were deemed to be the nation's 'most precious asset', and mothers were idolized as the backbone of society. In ..read more

Jud Campbell, Stanford Law School, has published Tradition, Originalism, and General Fundamental Law at 47 Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 635 (2024). Here is the abstract. It is commonly thought that looking to post-ratification traditions in constitutional interpretation is in tension with originalism. Yet traditionalism was central to American rights jurisprudence at the Founding and during Reconstruction. Back then, Americans jurists widely recognized a cross-jurisdictional body of general fundamental law. Though sometimes mentioned in constitutional text, this body of general fun ..read more

Joseph Blocher and Brandon L. Garrett, both of Duke University School of Law, have published Applying History as Law: The Role of Historical Facts in Implementing Constitutional Doctrine as Duke Law School Public Law & Legal Theory Series No. 2025-03. Here is the abstract. The U.S. Supreme Court has long relied on historical evidence in constitutional cases, but recent years have seen a major change in how it does so: not only to interpret the meaning of constitutional text, but to establish doctrinal tests that call for historical evidence to be used in the application of those tests goin ..read more

Kellen Heniford, Everytown for Gun Safety, and Kari Still, Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, are publishing Panic! At the Ballroom: The 1804 New Orleans Ballroom Weapons Ban in a Post-Bruen Context in the Buffalo Law Review. Here is the abstract. In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decisions in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen in 2022 and United States v. Rahimi in 2024, history has taken a central role in the adjudication of Second Amendment cases. Researchers, courts, and litigators across the country have taken on the arduous task of sifting through ..read more

Ian Keay, Department of Economics, Queen's University, Kris Inwood, University of Guelph, Department of Economics, and Blair Long, Memorial University, have published Public Sentiment and Criminal Sentencing: Gender, Indigeneity, and Class in Nineteenth Century British Columbia . Here is the abstract. Using prison admission ledgers, we document the criminal sentencing behaviour of judges through an institutionally transformative period in the history of the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC). Between 1864 and 1913 we find significant biases in sentencing that resulted in shorter senten ..read more

Dana Amirbayeva, The English and Foreign Languages University, School of English Language Education has published Understanding The Significance Of Forensic Linguistics Among Law Students. Here is the abstract. The rapid growth of legal linguistics, also known as forensic linguistics, illustrates the development of modern science. Law students become engaged in a wide range of social endeavours, with legal language functioning as one of the primary tools. Both linguists and lawyers are interested in forensic linguistics due to its close connection between language and law. Many countries, for ..read more

Charles J. Reid, University of St. Thomas School of Law (Minnesota), has published London's Burning: The Gordon Riots of 1780, Conspiracy Theory, Elite Connivance, Law Reform, and Official Bigotry as U of St. Thomas (Minnesota) Legal Studies Research Paper No. 25-06. Here is the abstract. It is 1780 and the City of London is on fire. The Gordon Riots of June, 1780, was the largest and most destructive act of civil disobedience in the history of the United Kingdom. The Houses of Parliament were attacked. Prisons were burnt to the ground and all the captives freed. Only the British army succeede ..read more