Following the Supreme Court’s decision in US v Rahimi upholding a law banning domestic abusers from accessing firearms, Jennifer Tucker provided analysis of the decision and its impact on CNN. The 8-1 ruling in the case, which comes after the Court’s 2022 Bruen decision upended the legal landscape surrounding firearms, Read more…
Writing in CNN Opinion, Jennifer Tucker reflects on the conviction in criminal court of a mother, Jennifer Crumbley, charged with manslaughter in connection with the mass shooting committed by her teenage son at an Oxford, Michigan high school. This marks the first time in U.S. history that a parent has Read more…
Amidst the recent resignation of National Rifle Association (NRA) executive vice president and CEO Wayne LaPierre, Jennifer Tucker has written an op-ed in CNN exploring the long-time leader’s personal legacy and the future of the NRA. LaPierre resigned just ahead of the start of a major trial that alleges self-dealing and Read more…
“Gundamentalism,” Modern American History (May 16, 2023), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1017/mah.2023.12 Firearms and ballistics are at the center of public debate in the United States today. They are technologies that are associated both with danger (in the form of gun violence) and safety (in the form of claims that firearms offer personal protection). This Read more…
Jennifer Tucker was recently interviewed on the Brady podcast in an episode titled, “The Rising Lethality of the Second Amendment.” Tucker describes her early introduction to guns in popular culture and how she came to study guns as a historian, leading to the establishment of the Center for the Study Read more…
Miller, D.H. and J. Tucker, “Common Use, Lineage, and Lethality,” UC Davis Law Review 55/5 (2022), 101–119. Abstract: Sorely missing from the current debate is a shared vocabulary for what the public policy and the constitutional doctrine is aiming to achieve. Terms like “common use,” “dangerous and unusual,” “lineal descendants” Read more…
Wesleyan University (Middletown, CT): Through the generosity of a Mellon Foundation “Humanities for All Times” award, Wesleyan is able to embark on a new project that explores – from interdisciplinary perspectives – the past and contemporary resonances of slavery, race, and industrialization in New England, through innovative curricula, engagement with Read more…
“The Queen’s Mark: Guns, Photography, and the Visual Abstraction of Precision,” Victorian Review 48:1 (Spring 2022). Brief excerpt: When we think today about Victorian photography, certain categories spring to mind: portraits, mug shots, landscapes, metropolitan and colonial scenes—categories defined by similarities in form, style, or subject matter. To approach photographs Read more…
In December 2021, I received a $3,600 award from the Creative Campus Initiative (CCI) committee to support two artists engaging with a new course to be offered soon. Titled, “Reenacting Justice: Documentary Theater Workshop on U.S. Guns and Gun Violence,” the course will be co-hosted by the Theater Department and co-taught Read more…
This course and lab course will create a research and teaching network across academic divisions, foster individual student work, and engage faculty, local Middletown and New England resources including libraries and museums.
