WashU Expert: Call to repeal Second Amendment is compelling, hazardous
Constitutional law expert Greg Magarian, of Washington University and a former clerk for retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, said Stevens makes a compelling historical and legal case for amending the Constitution. At the same time, he warns that the path Stevens advocates would present distinctive challenges and hazards.
The importance of groups: First Amendment expert testifies before United States Commission on Civil Rights
John Inazu, JD, first amendment expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, was invited to provide testimony to the United States Commission on Civil Rights briefing on “Peaceful Coexistence? Reconciling Non-discrimination Principles with Civil Liberties.”
First Amendment weakens gun rights advocates’ insurrection argument
Many gun rights advocates have asserted that the Second Amendment – which protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms – serves a collective interest in deterring and, if necessary, violently deposing a tyrannical federal government. “The strength of this assertion is significantly weakened by the power of the First Amendment,” says Gregory P. Magarian, JD, constitutional law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “We have spent almost a century developing the First Amendment as the main vehicle for dynamic political change. Debate and political expression is preferable to insurrection as a means of political change and our legal culture’s attention to the First and Second Amendments reflects a long-settled choice of debate over violent uprising.”
Gun owners, sellers needn’t worry with Obama as president, says Second Amendment expert
An expert on the Second Amendment says that gun owners and sellers should not be sweating bullets over Barack Obama’s election as president. Despite Obama’s record on gun control, David T. Konig, Ph.D., a professor of history in Arts & Sciences and a professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, says that the right of the people to keep and bear arms will not be an issue that Obama will address as president early in his term — if at all.