Firearms Law
Spring 2016, All Sections
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep
and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
U.S. Const. amend. II.
Casebook:
Johnson et al., Firearms Law and the Second Amendment (Wolters Kluwer 2012) (required)
First Class Assignment:
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Address the matters set forth below, under the heading, If you cannot attend the first class
meeting, if you will not be attending the first class.
Read Casebook pp. 1–36.
Read the Syllabus (posted on the course Blackboard site, available at:
https://courses.missouri.edu).
Be prepared to address the following administrative matters during the first class:
1. Selection of which students have which pages for presentation.
As noted on the syllabus, students will be presenting (in teams) most of the reading
for the first few weeks of class. (I will be presenting the other material.) The reading
for the first few weeks has been divided into more than six separate sections (which
are shown on the syllabus). Given the current enrollment, I currently expect to have
6 groups. By the end of the first class, students will need (i) to have identified the
person or persons with whom they will be doing that presentation during the first
few weeks of class (their groups); and (ii) have selected the material they will be
presenting.
You may wish to start the process of forming a group before the first class meeting.
On or before the first day of classes, I will email to all the students the then-current
roll, to facilitate that coordination.
2. Class agreement on how to reschedule a few student presentations of paper content.
Students will prepare papers in this class. In addition, students will present to the
class the subject covered by their papers. That will happen during the last two
weeks of classes (after Spring Break). A few hours of regularly scheduled class time
during the first part of the term will be canceled. These will be rescheduled for some
time, convenient to the enrolled students, during the last two weeks of the term.
This is make more time available at the end of the term, to give students more time
to prepare to make the presentations of the subjects of their papers.
Firearms Law, First Class Assignment, Page 1.
During the first class meeting, we will discuss whether students would prefer to
have the rescheduled meetings (i) during free hours in the class schedule; (ii) on one
evening; or (iii) some other time. So, before the first class, you should think about
how you would prefer to arrange the scheduling.
As part of that scheduling, you should think about whether you think that you would
be inclined to do a presentation of the subject of your paper with another student or
whether you would prefer to do it by yourself. In either case, each student will need
to prepare his or her own paper, meeting the requirements of the syllabus.
However, it is possible that two students will wish to address topics with substantial
overlap. In such a case, it might make sense to have two students jointly present a
particular issue or topic.
As noted in the syllabus, paper topics do not need to be settled for a few weeks. So,
nothing definitive on this issue of jointly presenting would need to be settled in the
first class. However , it will be best to start the conversation, soliciting student
preferences, at the first class meeting.
If you cannot attend the first class meeting:
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You will need to have identified one person with whom you will participate as a group,
who will attend the first class, to do the presentations.
Before class, email me (barondesr@missouri.edu), indicating that you will not be
attending the first class and identifying the person who will be presenting with you
during the first few weeks (as contemplated by point 1., above).
Draft of 1/8/16
Firearms Law, First Class Assignment, Page 2.