Cleveland State Law Review Article by Alumnus Patrick Charles cited in 7th Circuit Gun Law Case

2ndamendmentThe dissenting opinion in a recent gun law case cited to Patrick J. Charles, The Faces of the Second Amendment Outside the Home: Historical Versus Ahistorical Standards of Review, 60 Clev. St. L. Rev. 1, 31-32 (2012).   See Moore v. Madigan, Nos. 12-1269, 12-1788, at 24  (7th Cir. Dec. 11, 2012).  The case concerned the constitutionality of an Illinois statute banning the carrying of a “gun ready to use”, with some exceptions, such as for police,   hunters and carrying a gun on your own property.   The majority in Moore held this statute was unconstitutional.   Finding that  it must accept the historical conclusions of District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), the majority held that the Second Amendment right of armed self-defense must extend outside the home in some form or fashion.

The dissent asserts that Heller’s historical analysis did not address whether there existed a historical right to carry ready-to-use arms outside the home.  Instead, Heller focused on the historical right to possess ready-to-use firearms in the home for self defense.  The dissent cites to Charles’ historical research to show that it is unclear whether, at the time of the founding, there was a widely understood right to carry ready-to-use arms in public for potential self-defense.

Patrick J. Charles is a 2009 alumnus of Cleveland-Marshall College of Law.