Abstract

This article examines emergency restrictions imposed by state-level public officials on firearms during the COVID-19 pandemic. It surveys the litigation challenging each of the relatively few restrictions that were imposed, considers when and whether courts should apply the deferential Jacobson standard, the Heller Second Amendment analysis, or both, and explores the possibility that the unsettled nature of Second Amendment jurisprudence makes it likely that challenges to emergency firearms restrictions could result in dramatic developments in what the Second Amendment protects.