This chapter addresses symmetry’s implications for gun rights and unenumerated fundamental liberties. Although recognizing an individual right to bear arms is inevitably asymmetric given current divides over gun regulation, the Supreme Court might moderate its decisions’ asymmetry in two ways: by allowing some meaningful room for firearms regulation, and by ensuring that the Second Amendment sometimes interferes with laws that are conventionally favored more by conservatives than by progressives. With respect to unenumerated rights, symmetry should support embracing some method for identifying such rights that avoids any predictable skew toward rights favored by one or the other major partisan or ideological camp. The Court’s current method of looking to “history and tradition” to define unenumerated rights could satisfy this standard, provided the Court applies it in a manner that allows recognition of new rights based on enactment of new laws over time in jurisdictions across the United States. In addition, the existing constitutional protection for parental rights, meaning parents’ authority to control key aspects of their children’s upbringing, appears not only defensible under the Court’s “history and tradition” approach but also symmetric given major current divides over certain parenting choices.

Chapter 8 investigates several aspects of low-road market capitalism across regions of the United States. It tackles Black soldier protest and military discipline, the post-Civil War sale of guns and munitions, and the development of railroads as a physical and economic vehicle for the dispersal of violence in the United States. Labor strikes, the Panic of 1873, and the centrality of the federal governmment to the interests of industrial capitalism are prominent features of this chapter.

Chapter 2 traces the historical development of mass tort litigation from the 1970s through the 1990s, documenting plaintiffs attorneys initial unsuccessful attempts in the 1990s to extend public nuisance theory to mass tort products and marketing litigation. During this initial foray into public nuisance theory, courts instead universally defaulted to a narrow view of nuisance grounded in property law. In cases involving tobacoo, asbestos, lead paint, and gun litigation courts declined to accept plaintiffs public nusiance claims, refusing invitations to expand a claim for public nuisance beyond its grounding in real property concepts. Courts contended that these mass tort harms sounded in causes of action for traditional products liability, not public nuisance, and that public nuisance law had never been applied to products cases. Courts noted the deleterious effects of accepting an expanded concept of public nuisance, which would allow any plaintiff to describe a harm from a lawful product as producing a public nuisance. Such a concept would invite unlimited liability for manufacturers of legal products.

Chapter 6 examines the special challenges public carry of firearms pose for public protest. Arming public protests is incompatible with peaceful forms of dissent. It threatens to intimidate protesters and chill protected First Amendment activity in the public square. The chapter proposes several measures that can reduce or eliminate these harms, including prohibitions on public carry at permitted events, bans on armed groups in public places, and place restrictions deemed presumptively valid under the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court has recently issued an expansive interpretation of public carry rights, based on the nation’s historical practice of gun regulation. But there is historical support for at least some restrictions on public carry at or near public protest events. Even if the best that can be done is a ban on open carry, that would alleviate some of the most nefarious effects public carry has on public protest.

It is important to avoid injuries at all stages of life. Older people are at a relatively higher risk of developing injuries as well as dying from injuries, compared to younger people. Falling is an important cause of death amongst older persons. The risk of hip fracture increases exponentially with age in both men and women. It is reported that 30% of people with a hip fracture will die in the following year. Physical exercise can help by building stronger bones and muscles. Although driving is important for functional independence and development and maintenance of social relationships, older people may develop impaired driving performance and a formal driving evaluation may be advisable. Also, the danger of cumulative and repetitive trauma to the brain has been known for many years and head injuries double the risk of Alzheimer’s. The human brain is not well protected from damages inflicted by physical forces. All injuries to the head are bad, including big ones and repetitive small ones. All forms of head injuries must be avoided throughout life.

In this chapter, Gregory Parks deconstructs Public Enemy’s 1989 song, “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos” to offer an analysis of four of the song’s themes. First, he grapples with the assumption that Blacks (like other racial minorities) are often viewed as less “American” than whites. As a parallel phenomenon, Blacks view patriotism to America in different, albeit more critical, ways than whites. These dynamics highlight broader dynamics around racial justice in America. Second, there has been a long history of racism in the United States military. Even to date, issues around white nationalists in the US armed forces linger. Third, the arch of the US criminal justice system has demonstrated that racism has been at the heart of it in ways that reverberate to this day. Fourth, central to Blacks’ quest for freedom, justice, and equality is firearms.