Angus McClellan (Claremont Colleges – School of Politics and Economics, Students) has posted The Second Amendment, Sensitive Places, and Comprehensive Government Security on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
I have previously researched the history surrounding the tradition of prohibiting weapons in sensitive places, and in 2023 I made some of my research publicly available through an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit in Wolford v. Lopez (No. 23-16164). In my brief I argued that the historical record demonstrates that, at the time of the Founding of the United States, locational restrictions on the carrying of firearms were strictly limited to places where the government provided comprehensive security. Professor Mark W. Smith cited my work collecting historical support for this proposition in his article on sensitive places in which he reached the same conclusion. Mark W. Smith, Dangerous, but not Unusual: Mistakes Commonly Made by Courts in Post-Bruen Litigation, 22 Georgetown J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 599 (2024). Since then, I have conducted additional historical research and have unearthed further support for the government-provided-security principle in laws from around the country in the Founding era. I am working on a comprehensive article contextualizing these historical laws, but I am publishing a so-far comprehensive outline and repository of the historical sources I have uncovered to aid anyone else who is doing legal work or historical research in this area.