This article examines emergency restrictions imposed by state-level public officials on firearms during the COVID-19 pandemic. It surveys the litigation challenging each of the relatively few restrictions that were imposed, considers when and whether courts should apply the deferential Jacobson standard, the Heller Second Amendment analysis, or both, and explores the possibility that the unsettled nature of Second Amendment jurisprudence makes it likely that challenges to emergency firearms restrictions could result in dramatic developments in what the Second Amendment protects.
C.MacLellan, U.S. Firearms Sales: March 2020 Unit Sales Show Anticipated Covid-19 Related Boom, Small Arms Analytics (April1, 2020), available at <http://smallarmsanalytics.com/v1/pr/2020-04-01.pdf> (last visited September 11, 2020).
C.MacLellan, U.S. FirearmsSsales: May 2020 Unit Sales Break Records Yet Again (June1, 2020), Small Arms Analytics, available at <http://smallarmsanalytics.com/v1/pr/2020-06-01.pdf> (last visited September 11, 2020).
J.H.Powell, Bring Out Your Dead: The Great Plague of the Yellow Fever in Philadelphia in 1793 (Philadelphia: Univ. of Penn. Press, 1949).
13.
United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 566 (1995).
14.
Brown v. Maryland, 25 U.S. (12 Wheat.) 419, 442-43 (1827).
15.
Barnes v. Glen Theatre, 502 U.S. 560, 569 (1991).
16.
Jacobson v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905).
17.
See, e.g., California Constitution art. IV Sec. 86.
18.
See, e.g., Mich. Comp. Laws § 10.31.
19.
See, e.g., Cal. Const. art. IV, § 8, cl. (d)
20.
See, e.g., Ga. Code § 38-3-51(d)(4).
21.
See, e.g., 20 Ill. Comp. Stat. § 3305/7(c)(8).
22.
See, e.g., L.F.Wiley and S.I.Vladeck, “Coronavirus, Civil Liberties, and the Courts: The Case Against “Suspending Judicial Review,”Harvard Law Review Forum133, no. 9 (2020): 179-199.
23.
Friends of DeVito v. Wolf, 2020 WL 1847100 (Supr. Ct. of PA. 2020).
24.
Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (1976).
25.
Friends of DeVito at 21.
26.
South Bay Pentecostal Church v. Newsom, 2020 WL 2813056 (2020).
27.
Id., at 2 (quoting Marshall v. United States, 414 U. S. 417, 427 (1974)).
28.
Id. (quoting Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U. S. 528, 545 (1985)).
29.
In re: Abbott, 954 F.3d 772, 784 (5th Cir. 2020).
30.
Id., at 786.
31.
Little Rock Family Planning Services v. Rutledge, 2020 WL 2240105, 3-5(E.D. Ark., May 7, 2020).
32.
Adams & Boyle, P.C. et al., v. Slatery et al, 956 F.3d 913 (6th Cir. 2020); South Wind Women's Center LLC v. Stitt, 2020 Wl 1860683 (10th Cir. 2020).
33.
Adams at 927.
34.
See the Online Appendix for table summarizing claims.
Mich. Exec. Order No. 2020-59 (April 26, 2020), available at <https://www.michigan.gov/documents/whitmer/EO_2020-59_Signed_688350_7.pdf> (last visited Septebmer 11, 20202) (allowing curbside pickup for non-essential goods, including firearms, and in-store purchases of guns from stores that sell necessary supplies as well as guns).
Complaint, Aragon et.al v. Grisham et.al, 1:20-cv-00325, 10 (D.N.M, April 10, 2020).
41.
South Bay Pentecostal at 1; See also In re Abbott, 954 F.3d 772, 785 (5th Cir. 2020); In re Rutledge, 956 F.3d 1018, 1028 (8th Cir. 2020).
42.
J.Blocher and D.A.H.Miller, “What is Gun Control? Direct Burdens, Incidental Burdens, and the Boundaries of the Second Amendment,”University of Chicago Law Review83 (2016): 295-355.
43.
Jacobson at 7.
44.
S.Mervosh, J.C.Lee, L.Gamio, and N.Popovich, “See How All 50 States Are Reopening,”New York Times, June5, 2020.
45.
Altman, et al., v. County of Santa Clara, et al., 2020 WL 2850291, 9 (N.D.CA., June 2, 2020).
46.
Heller, 554 U.S. at 635.
47.
See, e.g., Woollard v. Gallagher, 712 F3.d 865, 874-75 (4th Cir. 2013) (including a list of cases that apply a two-step approach).
48.
See, e.g., Teixeira v. County of Alameda, 873 F.3d 670 (9th Cir. 2017) (en banc).
49.
See, e.g., Silvester v. Harris, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 22184 (9th Cir. Dec. 14, 2016).
50.
Silvester v. Becerra, 138 S.Ct. 945 (2018).
51.
Heller v. District of Columbia (Heller II), 670 F.3d 1244, 1253 (D.C. Cir. 2011).
52.
See, e.g., United States v. Skoien, 614 F.3d 638, 641 (7th Cir. 2010) (en banc).
