Blog Posts

Technological Crumbs

In 2021, I gave a presentation on the future of police tech that I called “Casings, Cameras, and Crumbs.” It was at the French Embassy (which was super cool!) and hosted by the Government Business Executive Forum (GBEF). I was introduced by my good friend Adam S. Lee. The point of the “crumbs” in that […]

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A Leopard’s Spots…

With criminals, I have found that the saying “a leopard can’t change its spots” is often spot on. There are a lot of repeat offenders out there, especially when it comes to gun crime. I’m not just imagining things. The United States Sentencing Commission studied recidivism rates in federal defendants and found that gun offenders

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Obey your mother

Obey your mother…unless she asks you to help her with a retaliatory shooting. Yes, that’s really what happened in this case from the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. After mom got into a scrap at the park over an ex-boyfriend (which lead to an initial shooting), she left and got her son.

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DON’T do it for Johnny!

The Ninth Circuit: “DON’T do it for Johnny!” A few weeks ago I wrote an Outsiders-themed post about switchblade knives and the Second Amendment. In that case, the government filed a brief in the Fifth Circuit defending the constitutionality of the Federal Switchblade Act. Well here’s another one. Last week, in a different case involving

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Nonviolent Stalking

Assassinating a CEO is violent. Stalking the CEO so you can shoot him is not (or so says this court). I’ve written a lot about the difficulty federal law has in saying what qualifies as a “crime of violence.” See, e.g., this Yoda-themed post, this Pickles-themed post, this ‘O Brother Where At Thou’ themed post,

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Making Guns

Americans have been making guns for a long time. What does the law say about it? On February 20th, I’ll explain “The Law of Making Firearms” in a webinar presented by the University of Wyoming College of Law’s Firearms ResearchCenter. Register here. You can also find details on the Center’s website here.

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Machinegun Briefing

This was a really cool event. (See the University of Wyoming’s Firearms Research Center post here.) It was awesome of the ATF to offer its time, insight, and expertise to give a bunch of Second Amendment law profs practical exposure to what it sees everyday in the real world. Huge tip o’ the hat to

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No Soliciting

Perhaps the best two dollars I ever spent at Walmart was on a “No Soliciting“ sign. (And I’ve spent a lot of money at Walmart!) I just don’t like strangers knocking on my door. The sign worked like magic. They’d walk down my driveway and just as they reached the front porch, they’d see the

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Nonmailable Firearms

A few Christmases ago, I wrote about the Nonmailable Firearms Act of 1927. You can read that post here. Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) formally opined that the act was unconstitutional and violates the Second Amendment, at least to the extent that it prohibited mailing firearms that are

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Expert Witnesses

Have you ever had a day so good that you start worrying something must go wrong, because how can it stay that good, but then nothing bad happens? My whole week has been like that. I didn’t get hit by a bus. I didn’t trip and fall. I didn’t even spill anything on my shirt.

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