Firearms Law and the Second Amendment: Regulation, Rights, and Policy - Online Chapters

Abstract

These are the online Chapters of the law school casebook Firearms Law and the Second Amendment: Regulation, Rights, and Policy, by Nicholas J. Johnson, David B. Kopel, George A. Mocsary, and Michael P. O’Shea (Aspen Publishers): Chapter 12 - Social Science; Chapter 13 - International Law; Chapter 14 - Comparative Law; Chapter 15 - In-Depth Explanation of Firearms and Ammunition.

Chapter 12 presents empirical data and studies on firearm use and misuse. Most of the chapter involves criminological issues like gun use in crime, resisting crime, and guns as deterrents to crime. The chapter also covers many facets of the debates about gun control or gun ownership as strategies for reducing crime. In addition to the strictly criminological issues, it presents information on suicide and accidents. Chapter 13 covers international law principles and documents involving self-defense and firearms control. The chapter, like modern international law generally, deals with both relations between nations and interactions between states and individuals. The chapter covers modern international law conventions; classical international law, based on the treatises of scholars such as Grotius, Pufendorf, and Vattel, who helped found the global system of international law in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries; the right of resistance under international law, especially resistance to genocide; and the perspective of Harold Koh, former Legal Adviser to the U.S. State Department, on how and why international gun control should be implemented. Chapter 14 compares and contrasts the "domestic" (non-international) gun laws of various nations and examining the possible effects of those different laws. Chapter 15 provides a detailed explanation of the various types of firearms and ammunition, including how they function. It also provides some basics about the many types of non-firearm arms.

Keywords: firearm, firearms, second amendment, gun, guns, international law, comparative law, social science, genocide, tyranny, criminology, constitutional law, constitution