Robert J. Cottrol (born January 18, 1949) is an American

legal scholar Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

and

legal historian Legal history or the history of law is the study of how law has Sociocultural evolution, evolved and why it has changed. Legal history is closely connected to the development of civilisations and operates in the wider context of social history. C ...

Career

Cottrol holds a chair in the George Washington University (GWU) Law School and is also a professor of

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

and

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...

at GWU. He earned his B.A. and Ph.D. from

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

, and his J.D. from

Georgetown Law School The Georgetown University Law Center (Georgetown Law) is the law school of Georgetown University, a private research university in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1870 and is the largest law school in the United States by enrollment and t ...

. His research concentrates on race relations in U.S. legal history and criminal law contexts. He is the author of five books and dozens of book chapters, law review articles, book reviews, and other published works on slavery, gun control, and others topics. He is also the editor of ''Gun Control and the Constitution: Sources and Explorations on the Second Amendment''.

On gun control

Cottrol supports the use of background checks on firearms purchases, especially to prevent ownership by convicted felons. However, he argues that law-abiding citizens should have ready access to guns for self-defense. He says that minorities in particular need them to counter the threat of harsh treatment in racist cultures.

Partial bibliography

*1982 ''The Afro-Yankees: Providence's Black Community in the Antebellum Era'' *1993 ''Gun Control and the Constitution: Sources and Explorations on the Second Amendment'' (editor) *1998 ''From African to Yankee: Narratives of Slavery and Freedom in Antebellum New England'' *2003 ''Brown v. Board of Education: Caste, Culture, and the Constitution'' (with Raymond T. Diamond and Leland B. Ware) *2013 ''The Long, Lingering Shadow: Slavery, Race and Law in the American Hemisphere''

References

External links

GW Law Faculty: Robert Cottrol
brief biography at George Washington University Law School. Living people Georgetown University Law Center alumni Yale University alumni 21st-century African-American academics 21st-century American academics American legal scholars George Washington University faculty 1949 births {{US-legal-academic-bio-stub