The Journalist's Guide to Gun Policy Scholars and Second Amendment Scholars: About This Site

About This Site

When you cover gun issues, you often want to consult experts who can provide perspectives on

whether various gun controls make policy sense,
whether they violate the Second Amendment,
whether they violate state constitutional right-to-keep-and-bear-arms guarantees (which in most states clearly secure an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense),
whether gun manufacturers are subject to tort liability in lawsuits by cities or by victims of gun crime.

Fortunately, there are many credible, articulate scholars -- many of them at top research universities -- who can help you answer these questions for your readers. These are nationally recognized experts, most of whom have made names for themselves in other fields as well: Two, for instance, are among the leading liberal constitutional scholars in the nation (Profs. Sandy Levinson and William Van Alstyne). Three have clerked for Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court (Profs. Nelson Lund, Scot Powe, and Eugene Volokh).

This site focuses on scholars, liberal, moderate, and conservative, whose research has led them to be generally skeptical of many (though not all) gun controls, though some started out as gun control supporters but changed their views as their research progressed. That research has so far received relatively little media attention, perhaps in part because these scholars are harder to find than the advocacy organizations such as Handgun Control, Inc. and the National Rifle Association.

Most of these scholars are experts on a wide range of gun topics; a few specialize only in the criminological questions or only in the legal questions -- this is marked at the start of their credentials. Most have extensive experience talking to the media, both print and broadcast.

Feedback

Please send any comments you might have (positive or negative) to the editor at volokh@law.ucla.edu; I'd particularly like to hear how this guide can be made more useful.

About the Editor

This site was put together by Eugene Volokh, who teaches law at UCLA Law School. Volokh originally went into the academy as an expert in free speech law and cyberspace law; most of his teaching and writing still relates to those areas. Several years ago, though, he became interested in the criminological and constitutional questions related to guns, and has since begun writing about this subject, and teaching one of the few firearms regulation seminars taught at U.S. law schools.

Before going into teaching, he clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and for U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Alex Kozinski. Before going into law, he worked for 12 years as a computer programmer, and is still a partner in a small software business that he cofounded. He was born in Kiev in what was then the Soviet Union.