LOCAL GUN CONTROL LAWS AFTER DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA V. HELLER: SILVER BULLETS OR SHOOTING BLANKS? THE CASE FOR STRONG STATE PREEMPTION OF LOCAL GUN CONTROL LAWS

Since the beginning of the war in Iraq, there have been 4,377 American military deaths as of the time of this article. One overarching commonality amongst many of these men and women is that they most likely did not attend Reserve Officer Training Corps drill at an elite institution of higher education in the United States. During the 2008 presidential election campaign, both candidates called for an end to the exclusion of Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) programs from elite universities. The expulsion of ROTC from elite campuses has its roots in the Vietnam War era; as the hostility towards that era dissipated, it was replaced with a new veil of hostility premised on disagreement with the Clinton-era policy of ―don‘t ask, don‘t tell. ‖ As set forth in detail below, some of the nation‘s top universities, such as Brown, Columbia, Harvard, University of Chicago, and Yale, do not allow on-campus access to ROTC programs. Thus, not only are the majority of students at elite institutions not contributing to the common defense, it is unlikely that their schools will facilitate their doing so in the foreseeable future. This creates questions of fairness and creates a cultural rift between members of the military and civilian leadership classes. View More