History Seminar Series with Dr. Nathan Kozuskanich

Everyone is invited to the next installment of the History Seminar Series on Friday, November 1st at 2:30 pm in the Teaching Hub Sandbox (or online via Zoom).

Historian for Hire: The Second Amendment after Bruen and Rahimi

Dr. Nathan Kozuskanich

On March 15, 2023, The New York Times reported that “gun historians across the country are in demand like never before.” Although the 2008 Heller decision that the Second Amendment protected an individual right to self defense unconnected to militia service had unleashed a wave of lawsuits challenging gun laws throughout the country, few attorney generals turned to historians to help stem the tide. Then in 2022 the Court issued the Bruen decision which established that courts must evaluate current gun laws by considering the “historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Two years later, in Rahimi, the Court refined Bruen by allowing courts to consider historical analogues and general principles of gun regulation instead of exact comparisons. Enter the historians.

Dr. Kozuskanich will contextualize these recent decisions and discuss his work as a consultant and expert witness for the Washington DC Attorney General's office as it faces numerous challenges to the District's gun laws.