William G. Merkel
Associate Professor of Law
Articles
Response to Necessary to the Security of Free States: The Second Amendment as the Auxiliary Right of Federalism, 56 Am. J. Legal Hist. 392 (2016). Available at [Hein].
Uncoupling the Constitutional Right to Self-Defense from the Second Amendment: Insights from the Law of War, 45 Conn. L. Rev. 1809 (2013). Available at https://digitalcommons.lib.uconn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1211&context=law_review
A Founding Father on Trial: Jefferson's Rights Talk and the Problem of Slavery during the Revolutionary Period, 64 Rutgers L. Rev. 595 (2012). Available at https://www.rutgerslawreview.com/wp-content/uploads/archive/vol64/issue3/Merkel.pdf
Heller as Hubris, and How McDonald v. City of Chicago May Well Change the Constitutional World as We Know It, 50 Santa Clara L. Rev. 1221 (2010). Available at https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/lawreview/vol50/iss4/5/
The District of Columbia v. Heller and Antonin Scalia's Perverse Sense of Originalism, 13 Lewis & Clark L. Rev. 349 (2009). Available at https://law.lclark.edu/live/files/772
Jefferson's Failed Anti-Slavery Proviso of 1784 and the Nascence of Free Soil Constitutionalism, 38 Seton Hall L. Rev. 555 (2008). Available at https://scholarship.shu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1115&context=shlr&httpsredir=1&referer=
Parker v. the District of Columbia and the Hollowness of Originalist Claims to Principled Neutrality, 18 Geo. Mason U. C.R. L.J. 251 (2008). Available at [SSRN].
Mandatory Gun Ownership, the Militia Census of 1806, and Background Assumptions concerning the Early American Right to Arms: A Cautious Response to Robert Churchill, 25 Law & Hist. Rev. 187 (2007). Available at [SSRN].
A Cultural Turn: Reflections on Recent Historical and Legal Writing on the Second Amendment, 17 Stan. L. & Pol'y Rev. 671 (2006). Available at https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/merkel.pdf
The Authors' Reply to Commentaries on, and Criticisms of the Militia and the Right to Arms, or, How the Second Amendment Fell Silent, 12 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 357 (2004). Available at https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmborj/vol12/iss2/5/
Scottish Factors and the Origins of the Second Amendment: Some Reflections on David Thomas Konig's Rediscovery of the Caledonian Background to the American Right to Arms, 22 Law & Hist. Rev. 169 (2004). Available at [SSRN].
To See Oneself as a Target of a Justified Revolution: Thomas Jefferson and Gabriel's Uprising, 4 Am. Nineteenth Century Hist. 1 (2003). Available at [SSRN].
The Second Amendment in Context: The Case of the Vanishing Predicate, 76 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 403 (2000). Available at https://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=3295&context=cklawreview
Books
THE MILITIA AND THE RIGHT TO ARMS, OR HOW THE SECOND AMENDMENT FELL SILENT (with H. Richard Uviller), Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002.
Book Contributions
Chapters listed below, THE MILITIA AND THE RIGHT TO ARMS, OR HOW THE SECOND AMENDMENT FELL SILENT (with H. Richard Uviller), Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002:
Madisonian Structuralism: The Place of the Militia in the New American Science of Government,
Other Theories of Meaning Considered,
Text and Context
The Decay of the Old Militia, 1789–1840
The Emerson Case
The Era of the Volunteers, 1840–1903
The Gun in American Self-Portrait
The Militia Ideal in the American Revolutionary Era
The United States Army and the United States Army National Guard in the Twentieth Century
Jefferson in Paris: Rewriting the Problems of Slavery, Slaveholding, Family and Codependency, printed in THOMAS JEFFERSON AND PHILOSOPHY: ESSAYS ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL CAST OF JEFFERESON'S WRITINGS (M. Andrew Holowchak, ed., Lexington Books 2014).
Book Reviews
Book Review. Brown, R. Blake, Arming and Disarming, a History of Gun Control in Canada, 119 THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW 881 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/119.3.881.
Book Review. Hoffer, Peter Charles, A Nation of Laws: America's Imperfect Pursuit of Justice, 52 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF LEGAL HISTORY 385 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1093/ajlh/52.3.385.
Book Review. Halbrook, Stephen P., The Founders' Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms, 114 THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW 1074 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr.114.4.1074.
Book Review. Cornell, Saul, A Well Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America, 112 THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW 842 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr.112.3.842.
Jurisprudence
Citing Uncoupling the Constitutional Right to Self-Defense from the Second Amendment: Insights From the Law of War, 45 Conn. L. Rev. 1809, 1820-21 (2013).
United States v. Teston, No. CR 22-1400 JB (D.N.M. Apr. 15, 2024).
Citing Heller as Hubris, and How McDonald v. City of Chicago May Well Change the Constitutional World as We Know It, 50 Santa Clara L. Rev. 1221 (2010).
New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022).
Citing The District of Columbia v. Heller and Antonin Scalia's Perverse Sense of Originalism, 13 Lewis & Clark L. Rev. 349 (2009).
McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742, 911 (2010) (Breyer, J., dissenting).
Duncan v. Bonta, 19 F.4th 1087 (9th Cir. 2021).
Citing THE MILITIA AND THE RIGHT TO ARMS, OR HOW THE SECOND AMENDMENT FELL SILENT (with H. Richard Uviller), Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002.
City of New York v. Beretta USA Corp., 401 F.Supp.2d 244 (E.D. NY 2005).
NAACP v. AcuSport, 271 F.Supp.2d 435 (E.D. NY 2003).
US v. Emerson, 270 F.3d 203 (5th Cir. 2001).
Citing The Second Amendment in Context: The Case of the Vanishing Predicate, 76 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 403, 598 (2000)
State v. Misch, 256 A.3d 519 (2021), argument denied (Mar. 29, 2021).
Nordyke v. King, 563 F.3d 439 (9th Cir. 2009).
Merrell v. Chartiers Valley School Dist., 855 A.2d 713 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2004).
Mosby v. Devine, 851 A.2d 1031 (R.I. 2004).
Silveira v. Lockyer, 312 F.3d 1052 (9th Cir. 2002).
Conferences & Presentations
Sep. 2023. Presenter. Debate with Clark Neily of Cato Institute on Second Amendment. Federalist Society, CSOL Student Organization Event.
Oct. 2022. Panelist. Special Session II: Second Amendment: Aftermath of Bruen; What's Next at the State Level? Federalist Society.
