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By Root 1695 0

429 N.W.2d 225 (Mich. Ct. App. 1988) (same as Hershberger); Cabinet for Human Resources Kentucky Health Facilities v. Provincial Convent of the Good Shepherd, Inc., 701 S.W.2d 137 (Ky. Ct. App. 1985) (exemption from certain nursing home regulations). For pre-1980 cases, see Frank v. State, 604 P.2d 1068 (Alaska 1979) (exemption from moose hunting restriction); Bureau of Motor Vehicles v. Pentecostal House of Prayer, Inc., 380 N.E.2d 1225 (Ind. 1978) (exemption from driver's license photograph requirement); In re Palmer, 386 A.2d 1112 (R.I. 1978) (exemption from ban on headgear in courtroom); Whitehorn v. State, 561 P.2d 539 (Okla. Ct. Crim. App. 1977) (exemption from peyote ban); State v. Whittingham, 504 P.2d 950 (Ariz. Ct. App. 1973) (exemption from peyote ban); McMillan v. State, 265 A.2d 453 (Md. 1970) (exemption from ban on headgear in courtroom); People v. Woody, 394 P.2d 813 (Cal. 1964) (exemption from peyote ban); In re Jenison, 125 N.W.2d 588 (Minn. 1963) (exemption from jury duty). First Covenant Church and Hershberger were reversed and remanded by the Supreme Court in light of Employment Division v. Smith, but this doesn't matter for the article's purposes.

59See Terri LeClercq, Failure to Teach: Due Process and Law School Plagiarism, 49 J. Legal. Ed. 236, 254 (1999).

60See Gary Kleck, Targeting Guns 96–97 (1997).

61 In recent years, the ratio of intentional gun killings in the U.S. per year to fatal gun accidents has been over 17 to 1 (though this statistic isn't limited to killings in the home). See Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Injury Mortality Reports, 1999–2006, http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_sy.html (queries selecting [1] Homicide, [2] Firearm, [3] Year(s) of Report 2004 to 2006, yielding 36,767, and selecting [1] Unintentional, [2] Firearm, [3] Year(s) of Report 2004 to 2006, yielding 2,080).

About 15% of the homicides in 2005 were known to be of family members, boyfriends, or girlfriends, and the number seems roughly similar for gun homicides. See U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Homicide Trends in the U.S.—Family Homicides, http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/tables/familytab.cfm (2005 data) (1242 homicides were of family members, not including spouses); U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Homicide Trends in the U.S.—Intimate Homicides, http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/intimates.cfm & http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/tables/intimatestab.cfm (2005 data) (1510 homicides were of spouses, ex-spouses, boyfriends, and girlfriends); Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, supra (query selecting [1] Homicide, [2] Year(s) of Report 2005 to 2005, reporting a total of 18,124 homicides). I have no current data about the fraction that involves friends (as opposed to acquaintances).

Note that the numbers may vary across place and time; for instance, fatal gun accidents have been falling more or less steadily since the mid–1970s, while gun homicides rose sharply in the late 1960s and then fell in the late 1990s. Nonetheless, the disparity is great enough that I suspect intentional gun killings are almost always considerably more common than fatal gun accidents.

62 According to Kleck, supra note 60, at 294, “about half of unintentional gunshot woundings are self-inflicted”; I've seen no data specifically limited to fatal gun accidents, but I see no reason why the results would be markedly different. I know of no data indicating how many fatal accidents involve a shooter accidentally killing a stranger.

63 The best study I've seen on this suggests that in over 90% of all defensive gun uses, the assailant isn't even wounded by the defender, much less killed, and another study suggests that only about one in 6.25 gunshot wounds flowing from an assault leads to death. See Gary Kleck & Marc Gertz, Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self–Defense With a Gun, 86 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 150, 185 (1995); Gary Kleck, Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America 62 (1991). This data is for assaults generally,