The modern legal debate around the Second Amendment often presupposes a straight line from the flintlock musket to the AR-15...a presupposition that discounts that, since the mid-1800s, firearm lethality has dramatically increased. As a result, "a gun is a gun is a gun" no longer holds true. To discuss how that lethality increased, how "historically" based legal decisions around firearms have been fundamentally flawed, and how we need an improved vocabulary for discussing guns in the US, Kelly and JJ were joined by Dr. Jennifer Tucker (Associate Professor of History and Director, Center for the Study of Guns and Society at Wesleyan University).
Further reading:
Now that guns can kill hundreds in minutes, Supreme Court should rethink the rights question (CNN)
Theoretical Lethality Index (TLI)
In the Gun Law Fights of 2023, a Need for Experts on the Weapons of 1791 (the New York Times)
Common Use, Lineage, and Lethality (UC Davis Law Review)
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Music provided by: David “Drumcrazie” Curby
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