In The Myth of Continuity in American Gun Culture, Brian DeLay argues that modern amateur gunmakers—those who assemble firearms using a mix of premade and self-manufactured parts—lack any meaningful connection to the Founding-era tradition of arms making. But as I argue in a forthcoming essay...
Read MoreMatthew Larosiere is a firearms attorney and gun designer. The Colorado legislature is close to final passage of Senate Bill 25-003, to impose one of the most restrictive licensing systems in the nation on many, but not all firearms. Legislators and the public should understand...
Read MoreEarly repeating firearms technology utilized a range of different designs to fire multiple rounds before having to fully reload. The simplest and earliest method of producing arms capable of firing more than one round at a time was to fit a firearm with more than...
Read MoreThe “Western” is a popular culture genre that has intrigued international audiences ever since the appearance of dime novels and Buffalo Bill’s Wild West in the 19th century. The first western film, “The Great Train Robbery” dates to 1903 and the genre has changed greatly...
Read MoreMagazine-fed repeating firearms technology dates to the 1640s to the Dutch Kalthoff family. The Kalthoffs were gunmakers who developed a patent that allowed up to twenty-nine shots to be fired in rapid succession. The Kalthoff repeater was designed to have either a sliding breech mechanism...
Read MoreMid-19th century America saw a flurry of activity in the landscape of firearms design. In many cases, designers would experiment with merging older technology with more modern to see if they could create something new, to varying results. One such designer was John Walch. John...
Read MoreRobert Leider is an Assistant Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. In the Supreme Court, Illinois has filed its brief in opposition in Harrel v. Raoul (and its companion case Herrera v. Raoul). These cases challenge Illinois’s ban on some...
Read MoreThe Fourth Circuit court of appeals, sitting en banc, recently heard oral arguments in Bianchi v. Brown, a challenge to Maryland’s ban on so-called “assault weapons.” During the arguments, judges repeatedly interjected the phrase “M16s and the like” and asserted “the AR-15 is the M16.”...
Read MoreThis is the third in a series of three posts about the Colt single-action revolver, its reproductions, and the evolution of passive and active safeties. These posts are not statements about any of the lawsuits, whether criminal or civil, resulting from the shooting that took...
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