Since the Supreme Court’s landmark 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the expertise of those who study history and laws related to firearms in the U.S. has taken on new relevance, according to a March 14, 2023 article in The New York Times.
That is because Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, “found that gun laws should be judged not by the longstanding practice of balancing gun rights against the public interest, but according to the Second Amendment’s text and the ‘historical tradition’ of gun regulation.”
The article cites Jennifer Tucker, founding director of the Center for the Study of Guns & Society at Wesleyan University, and several other experts affiliated with the Center, describing the demand for their expertise.
Jennifer Tucker, who directs the Center for the Study of Guns & Society at Wesleyan University, said lawyers have reached out to seek experts on topics as disparate as weapon restrictions on stage coaches and the contested history around an 18th-century attempt at an extended capacity firearm — which supposedly would fire round bullets at Christians and square ones at “heathens” — known as the “Puckle gun.”
“In the Gun Law Fights of 2023, a Need for Experts on the Weapons of 1791,” The New York Times (March 14, 2023).
