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Debates over the right to keep and bear arms remain deeply divisive. For some, it serves as a vital safeguard against tyranny and a means of self-defense. For others, it represents an outdated principle that poses significant risks. Firearms Law and the Second Amendment offers a thorough examination of arms law in the United States and internationally, standing out as the leading casebook and scholarly resource in this field—cited repeatedly by courts, including the U.S. courts of appeals, state high courts, and U.S. district courts. 

The text provides detailed coverage of historical developments, modern federal and state regulations, and key litigation, equipping students with the knowledge needed to handle firearms-related legal issues in practice. Spanning from ninth-century England to present day United States, it situates legal doctrine within a broader social and cultural framework, addressing topics such as race and technological change. 

Supplemental chapters allow students to expand their understanding through both a global and historical perspective, tracing arms law from Confucian-era societies to the present. These chapters also explore how firearms law and policy intersect with issues of race, gender, sexual orientation, and other social categories, along with a practical explanation of how firearms and ammunition function, and the history of firearms evolution from the Middle Ages to the present. 

New to the Fourth Edition: 

• Updates to address the Supreme Court’s 2022 New York State Rifle and Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen decision and 2024 United States v. Rahimi decisions, including current conflicts in interpretation and application. 
• Hybrid electronic format with modern jurisprudence in print and essential historical background in a Connected eBook. 
• Expanded casebook website with additional teaching materials.

Professors and students will benefit from: 

• Practice-ready instruction, advice, and resource guides for lawyers — especially early career prosecutors or defenders, who often practice firearms law. 
• Five chapters on the diverse approaches of lower courts in applying the Supreme Court precedents in Bruen, Heller, and McDonald to contemporary laws. 
• Historical sources that shaped the right to arms, and that remain at the center of modern Second Amendment analysis under Bruen’s history and tradition standard of review. 
• A book that has been relied on by courts ever since the first edition in 2012. Cited by ten Circuit Courts of Appeals opinions — including by then-Judge Kavanaugh — and by over two dozen other courts, Firearms Law provides key historical and factual information used to uphold or invalidate diverse gun laws.