In 2023 Professor Eric Ruben testified as an expert witness In front of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on protecting public safety after Bruen. What happened when Prof Ruben testified on March 15, 2023 as one of five expert witnesses in front of the U.S. Senate Committee for the Judiciary during a full committee hearing titled “Protecting Public Safety After New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.” Gun crime continued to escalate in public areas across the nation, the Senate Judiciary Committee examines the post-Bruen landscape of firearm safety regulation and what Congress could do to protect public safety.
The following is the introduction to Eric Ruben's testimony. The full trascript can be seen at the below link.
Chairman Durbin, Ranking Member Graham, and members of the Committee, thank you for
inviting me to testify regarding the state of Second Amendment case law after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen,
1 and the implications for future gun safety legislation. My name is Eric Ruben, I am a professor at SMU Dedman School of Law, and I am testifying in my personal capacity.
2. In Bruen, the Supreme Court held that the constitutionality of modern gun laws must be evaluated by direct analogy to history. The Court’s novel historical-analogical approach was a drastic departure from the pre-Bruen doctrine applied by the lower federal courts, which had coalesced around a methodology that combined historical analysis with consideration of contemporary costs and benefits.
As a result, Bruen, in one fell swoop, cast doubt on over a decade’s worth of case law regarding the constitutionality of dozens of regulatory issues, in effect giving litigants a do-over under the new Bruen test. More than 100 opinions have issued since Bruen,
3 which demonstrate how lower courts have struggled to apply Bruen to various modern laws such as those regulating 3D-printed guns, largecapacity magazines, obliterated serial numbers, and gun possession by domestic abusers. Though Bruen purported to constrain judicial decisionmaking through historical analogy, the post-Bruen case law highlights the risk that, in fact, the opinion has enabled judicial subjectivity, obfuscation, and
unpredictability.
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2023-03-14%20-%20Testimony%20-%20Ruben.pdf
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