Joseph Blocher

Lanty L. Smith Distinguished Professor of Law

School of Law

blocher@law.duke.edu

Duke Law School Room 3174, Duke Box 90362, Durham, NC 27708-0360

Duke Law School 210 Science Dr, Duke Box 90362, Durham, NC 27708

More About This Person

At a Glance

Credentials
1. Education

Academic Experience
1. Current Appointments & Affiliations
2. Previous Appointments & Affiliations

Expertise
1. Global Scholarship

Research
1. Selected Grants
2. External Relationships

Publications
1. Selected Publications

Artistic Works / Events

Teaching
1. Recent Courses

Advising & Mentoring

Recognition
1. In the News

Professional Activities

Selected Publications

'Form Is of Some Consequence’: How the Peculiar Style of Amendments Has Shaped American Constitutional Law

Journal Article Florida Law Review · 2026 Link to item Cite

Applying History as Law: The Role of Historical Facts in Implementing Constitutional Doctrine

Journal Article Texas Law Review · 2026 Link to item Cite

The Ambitions of History and Tradition in and Beyond the Second Amendment

Journal Article University of Pennsylvania Law Review · 2026 Link to item Cite

Rights, then History: Choosing History and Tradition Based on Expected Case Outcomes

Journal Article Notre Dame Law Review Online · 2026 Cite

Historical Facts and Constitutional Law: New Challenges for Originalist Doctrine

Journal Article Duke Law Journal · 2026 Cite

The Second Amendment: Gun Rights and Regulation

Book · 2025 Link to item Cite

Technologies of Violence: Law, Markets, and Innovation for Gun Safety

Journal Article Texas Law Review · 2025 Link to item Cite

A Critique of Findings on Gun Ownership, Use, and Imagined Use from the 2021 National Firearms Survey: Response to William English

Journal Article SMU Law Review · 2025 Link to item Cite

Teaching Firearms Law: One Big Opportunity and Three Pedagogical Challenges National Firearms Survey: Response to William English

Journal Article William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal · 2025 Link to item Cite

Bruen in a Changing Judiciary

Journal Article Duke Law Journal Online · 2025 Link to item Cite

The Role of Speech Institutions When Both Speech and Institutions Are Threatened

Chapter · 2025 Cite

“Murder the Media”: Press Freedom, Violence, and the Public Sphere

Chapter · 2025 Link to item Cite

Cheap Violence: Weapons and the Law

Journal Article · 2025 Cite

Listening on Campus: Academic Freedom and its Audiences

Journal Article Southern California Law Review · 2025 Cite

Standards of Fact Review and Constitutional Litigation

Journal Article · 2025 Cite

A Great American Gun Myth: Race and the Naming of the "Saturday Night Special"

Journal Article Minnesota Law Review Headnotes · 2024 Link to item Cite

Originalism and Historical Fact-Finding

Journal Article Georgetown Law Journal · 2024 Link to item Cite

Safe Storage Laws and Self-Defense from Heller to Bruen

Journal Article North Carolina Law Review · 2024 Link to item Cite

“Murder the Media”: Press Freedom, Violence, and the Public Sphere

Other Knight First Amendment Institute Blog · 2024 Cite

Instead of Gun Regulation, Let’s Try Innovation

Other The Hill · 2024 Cite

Firearm Policy in the Hospital Setting—Recognizing Health Care as a “Sensitive Place”

Journal Article JAMA · 2024 Link to item Cite

Gun Violence and Prescriptions for Repair: A Novel Non-Encounter Restorative Justice Intervention

Journal Article · 2024 Cite

The Least Violence Avoider

Journal Article · 2024 Cite

Gitlow as a Guide to Holmes

Journal Article · 2024 Cite

The Two-Court Rule, Factual Dicta, and the Justices as Fact-Finders

Journal Article · 2024 Cite

Historical Gun Laws Targeting 'Dangerous' Groups and Outsiders

Journal Article · 2023 Link to item Cite

New Histories of Gun Rights and Regulation: Essays on the Place of Guns in American Law and Society

Book · 2023 Link to item Cite

Firearms Law and History in a New Doctrinal Era

Chapter · 2023 Link to item Cite

Does the Second Amendment Make Gun Politics Obsolete?

Journal Article Polity · 2023 Link to item Cite

"A Map Is Not the Territory”: The Theory and Future of the Sensitive Places Doctrine

Journal Article New York University Law Review Online · 2023 Link to item Cite

Guided By History: Protecting the Public Sphere From Weapons Threats Under Bruen

Journal Article New York University Law Review · 2023 Link to item Cite

Manufacturing Outliers

Journal Article Supreme Court Review · 2023 Link to item Cite

Firearms Law and Scholarship Beyond Bullets and Bodies

Journal Article Annual Review of Law and Social Science · 2023 Link to item Cite

Fact Stripping

Journal Article Duke Law Journal · 2023 Link to item Cite

Originalism-by-Analogy and Second Amendment Adjudication

Journal Article Yale Law Journal · 2023 Link to item Cite

Gun Rights and Domestic Violence in Rahimi—Whose Traditions Does the Second Amendment Protect?

Other Balkinization · 2023 Cite

Autonomy and Disciplinarity: Can Pseudoprofessional Speakers Select Their Own Constitutional Categorization?

Journal Article Boston University Law Review · 2023 Link to item Cite

"Second-Class" Rhetoric, Ideology, and Doctrinal Change

Journal Article Georgetown Law Journal · 2022 Link to item Cite

Cities, Preemption, and the Statutory Second Amendment

Journal Article University of Chicago Law Review · 2022 Link to item Cite

Navassa: Property, Sovereignty, and the Law of the Territories

Journal Article Yale Law Journal · 2022 Link to item Cite

Constitutional Gun Litigation Beyond the Second Amendment

Journal Article NYU Annual Survey of American Law · 2022 Link to item Cite

Living With Guns: Legal and Constitutional Considerations for Those Cohabiting With Temporarily Prohibited Possessors

Journal Article Journal of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers · 2022 Link to item Cite

Race and Guns, Courts and Democracy

Journal Article Harvard Law Review Forum · 2022 Link to item Cite

No, Red-Flag Gun Laws Don’t Violate Due Process Rights

A Supreme Court Head-Scratcher: Is a Colonial Musket ‘Analogous’ to an AR-15?

Other New York Times · 2022 Cite

Appraising Sandy’s Call to “Arms”: Success in the Academy … Not So Much in the Courts

Other Balkinization · 2022 Cite

Pointing Guns

Journal Article Texas Law Review · 2021 Link to item Cite

When Guns Threaten the Public Sphere: A New Account of Public Safety Regulation Under Heller

Journal Article Northwestern University Law Review · 2021 Link to item Cite

Two Concepts of Gun Liberty

Journal Article Quinnipiac Law Review · 2021 Link to item Cite

Why Do States Ban “Electioneering” but Allow Guns at Polling Places?

Other Slate · 2021 Cite

Guns Are a Threat to the Body Politic

Other The Atlantic · 2021 Link to item Cite

American Cities Have Always Regulated Guns. Now, Most Can’t

Other Washington Post · 2021 Link to item Cite

SCOTUS Taking up 2nd Amendment Case Could Mean Cuts to Broad Swaths of Gun Regulation

Other TPM Cafe · 2021 Cite

The U.S. Stole Billions From Haiti. It’s Time to Give It Back

Other Slate · 2021 Link to item Cite

Why Is the Gun Debate So Difficult?

Other Duke Magazine · 2021 Link to item Cite

No, Courts Don’t Treat the Second Amendment as a ‘Second-Class Right’

Other Washington Post · 2021 Link to item Cite

The Biggest Legal Obstacle to Gun Regulation: State Preemption Laws, Not the Second Amendment

Journal Article American Journal of Public Health · 2021 Link to item Cite

Guns and Democracy

Report · 2021 Link to item Cite

Transferable Sovereignty: Lessons from the History of the Congo Free State

Journal Article Duke Law Journal · 2020 Link to item Cite

Disuniformity of Federal Constitutional Rights

Journal Article University of Illinois Law Review · 2020 Link to item Cite

King Leopold's Bonds and the Odious Debts Mystery

Journal Article Virginia Journal of International Law · 2020 Link to item Cite

Domestic Violence and the Home-Centric Second Amendment

Journal Article Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy · 2020 Link to item Cite

“The Road I Can’t Help Travelling”: Holmes on Truth and Persuadability

Journal Article Seton Hall Law Review · 2020 Link to item Cite

Why Did Belgium Pay Leopold’s Bonds?

Journal Article Law and Contemporary Problems · 2020 Link to item Cite

Firearms, Extreme Risk, and Legal Design: "Red Flag" Laws and Due Process

Journal Article Virginia Law Review · 2020 Link to item Cite

Why Regulate Guns?

Journal Article The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics · 2020 Link to item Cite

True Threats, Self-Defense, and the Second Amendment

Journal Article The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics · 2020 Link to item Cite

The Geography of a Constitutional Right: Gun Rights Outside the Home

Journal Article Law and Contemporary Problems · 2020 Link to item Cite

Free Speech and Justified True Belief

Journal Article Harvard Law Review · 2019 Link to item Cite

Doctrinal Dynamism, Borrowing, and the Relationship Between Rules and Rights

Journal Article William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal · 2019 Link to item Cite

Bans

Journal Article Yale Law Journal · 2019 Link to item Cite

The “Handgun Article” in Justice Powell’s Papers

Other Second Thoughts · 2019 Cite

Sure, Trump Can Buy Greenland. But Why Does He Think It’s up to Denmark?

Other Politico Magazine · 2019 Cite

Rights as Trumps of What?

Journal Article Harvard Law Review Forum · 2019 Link to item Cite

Judicial Ideology and Second Amendment Doctrine

Journal Article · 2019 Cite

Symposium: Disrupting the Consensus on Second Amendment Doctrine Would be a Mistake

Other SCOTUSblog · 2019 Cite

Stevens, J., Dissenting: The Legacy of Heller

Journal Article Judicature · 2019 Link to item Cite

Puerto Rico and the Right of Accession

Journal Article Yale Journal of International Law · 2018 Link to item Cite

Puerto Rico and the Right of Accession

Journal Article Yale Journal of International Law · 2018 Link to item Cite

The Positive Second Amendment: Rights, Regulation, and the Future of Heller

Book · 2018 Link to item Cite

If Countries Won’t Take Refugees for Moral Reasons, Let’s Give Them Financial Incentives

Other Quartz · 2018 Cite

From Theory to Doctrine: An Empirical Analysis of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms After Heller

Journal Article Duke Law Journal · 2018 Link to item Cite

What Does Puerto Rican Citizenship Mean for Puerto Rico's Legal Status?

Journal Article Duke Law Journal Online · 2018 Link to item Cite

Constitutional Implications of Firearm Restrictions for Veterans with Fiduciaries

Journal Article Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research · 2018 Link to item Cite

What Firearms Law and Regulatory Scholarship Can Learn from Each Other

Other The Regulatory Review · 2018 Cite

You Can Lead a Horse to Water: Heller and The Future of Second Amendment Scholarship

Journal Article Duke Law Journal Online · 2018 Link to item Cite

The Second Amendment as Positive Law

Journal Article Charleston Law Review · 2018 Link to item Cite

Should Applicants Provide Reasons for Wanting a Concealed Weapon?

Chapter · 2018 Cite

A Market for Sovereign Control

Journal Article Duke Law Journal · 2017 Link to item Cite

Markets and Sovereignty

Journal Article Osgoode Hall Law Journal · 2017 Link to item Cite

Forced Secessions

Journal Article Law & Contemporary Problems · 2017 Link to item Cite

Free Speech Beyond Words: The Surprising Reach of the First Amendment

Book · 2017 Link to item Cite

The Fourth Circuit's "Assault Weapons" Ruling: Alternative Holdings and Alternative Weapons

Other ACSblog · 2017 Cite

Speech, Guns and Docs v. Glocks

Other ACSblog · 2017 Cite

Foreword: How to Think About Law and Markets

Journal Article Law & Contemporary Problems · 2017 Link to item Cite

An Empirical Study of Second Amendment Doctrine after Heller

Journal Article · 2017 Cite

What is Gun Control? Direct Burdens, Incidental Burdens, and the Boundaries of the Second Amendment

Journal Article University of Chicago Law Review · 2016 Link to item Cite

Competing for Refugees: A Market-Based Solution to a Humanitarian Crisis

Journal Article Columbia Human Rights Law Review · 2016 Link to item Cite

The Death Penalty and the Fifth Amendment

Journal Article Northwestern University Law Review · 2016 Link to item Cite

Lethality, Public Carry, and Adequate Alternatives

Journal Article Harvard Journal on Legislation · 2016 Link to item Cite

Scalia's Gun Rights Legacy is Likely to Stand, No Matter Who Replaces Him

Journal Article The Trace · 2016 Link to item Cite

Can Greece be Expelled from the Eurozone? Toward a Default Rule on Expulsion from International Organizations

Journal Article · 2016 Link to item Cite

Court-hacking Comes to North Carolina

Other News & Observer · 2016 Cite

Practice and Precedent in Historical Gloss Games

Journal Article Georgetown Law Journal Online · 2016 Link to item Cite

New Problems for Subsidized Speech

Journal Article William & Mary Law Review · 2015 Link to item Cite

Guest Post: Ukraine and Russia-You Break It, You Bought It

Other ericposner.com · 2015 Cite

We Can Regulate Guns at the Local Level, Too

Other New York Times · 2015 Cite

Hunting and the Second Amendment

Journal Article Notre Dame Law Review · 2015 Link to item Cite

Good Cause Requirements for Carrying Guns in Public

Journal Article Harvard Law Review Forum · 2014 Link to item Cite

Nonsense and the Freedom of Speech: What Meaning Means for the First Amendment

Journal Article Duke Law Journal · 2014 Link to item Cite

Selling State Borders

Journal Article University of Pennsylvania Law Review · 2014 Link to item Cite

Gun Rights Talk

Journal Article Boston University Law Review · 2014 Link to item Cite

Ukraine and Russia: "You Break It, You Bought It"

Other Financial History · 2014 Cite

Ukraine and Russia: "You Break It, You Bought It"

Journal Article Financial History · 2014 Link to item Cite

New Approaches to Old Questions in Gun Scholarship

Journal Article Tulsa Law Review · 2014 Link to item Cite

Firearm Localism

Journal Article Yale Law Journal · 2013 Link to item Cite

Implementing First Amendment Institutionalism

Journal Article New England Law Review on Remand · 2013 Link to item Cite

The Right Not to Keep or Bear Arms

Journal Article Stanford Law Review · 2012 Link to item Cite

Rights To and Not To

Journal Article California Law Review · 2012 Link to item Cite

What We Fret About When We Fret About Bootstrapping

Journal Article Law & Contemporary Problems · 2012 Link to item Cite

Public Discourse, Expert Knowledge, and the Press

Journal Article Washington Law Review · 2012 Link to item Cite

Order Without Judges: Customary Adjudication

Journal Article Duke Law Journal · 2012 Link to item Cite

Second Things First: What Free Speech Can and Can't Say About Guns

Journal Article Texas Law Review · 2012 Link to item Cite

District of Columbia v. Heller

Chapter · 2012 Link to item Cite

Reverse Incorporation of State Constitutional Law

Journal Article Southern California Law Review · 2011 Link to item Cite

Viewpoint Neutrality and Government Speech

Journal Article Boston College Law Review · 2011 Link to item Cite

Government Property and Government Speech

Journal Article William & Mary Law Review · 2011 Link to item Cite

Popular Constitutionalism and the State Attorneys General

Journal Article Harvard Law Review Forum · 2011 Link to item Cite

What State Constitutional Law Can Tell Us About the Federal Constitution

Journal Article Penn State Law Review · 2011 Link to item Cite

Roberts' Rules: The Assertiveness of Rules-Based Jurisprudence

Journal Article Tulsa Law Review · 2011 Link to item Cite

Constitutionalizing Local Politics

Journal Article Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review Amicus · 2011 Link to item Cite

Transforming Property Into Speech

Journal Article Legal Workshop · 2011 Link to item Cite

Influence of Land Tenure Practices on Artisanal Mining Activity in Ghana

Journal Article Resources Policy · 2010 Link to item Cite

Schrödinger’s Cross: The Quantum Mechanics of the Establishment Clause

Journal Article Virginia Law Review in Brief · 2010 Link to item Cite

Reputation as Property in Virtual Economies

Journal Article Yale Law Journal Pocket Part · 2009 Link to item Cite

Categoricalism and Balancing in First and Second Amendment Analysis

Journal Article New York University Law Review · 2009 Link to item Cite

Property and Speech in 'Summum'

Journal Article Northwestern University Law Review Colloquy · 2009 Link to item Cite

Heller's Problematic Second Amendment Categoricalism

Journal Article The Legal Workshop · 2009 Link to item Cite

Amending the Exceptions Clause

Journal Article Minnesota Law Review · 2008 Link to item Cite

Questions About Tax Increment Financing in North Carolina

Journal Article Community & Economic Development Bulletin · 2008 Link to item Cite

Institutions in the Marketplace of Ideas

Journal Article Duke Law Journal · 2008 Link to item Cite

School Naming Rights and the First Amendment's Perfect Storm

Journal Article Georgetown Law Journal · 2007 Link to item Cite

The Guantanamo Three Step

Journal Article Yale Law Journal Pocket Part · 2007 Link to item Cite

Combatant Status Review Tribunals: Flawed Answers to the Wrong Question

Journal Article Green Bag · 2006 Link to item Cite

Private Business as Public Good: Hotel Development and Kelo

Journal Article Yale Law & Policy Review · 2006 Link to item Cite

Building on Custom: Land Tenure Policy and Economic Development in Ghana

Journal Article Yale Human Rights & Development Law Journal · 2006 Link to item Cite

Selling the Name on the Schoolhouse Gate: The First Amendment and the Sale of Public School Naming Rights

Journal Article School Law Bulletin · 2006 Link to item Cite

Book Note

Journal Article Yale Human Rights & Development Law Journal · 2003 Link to item Cite