ASU grad bridges disciplines and perspectives with his Second Amendment research
Cronkite School and Barrett senior Sam McGee in Chefchaouen, Morocco, during a 2024 Barrett study abroad program. Photo by Alex Trimble Young
Editor’s note: This story is part of a series of profiles of notable spring 2026 graduates.
Sam McGee is an Arizona State University senior graduating with honors whose research promises to leave a lasting impression on Barrett, the Honors College, and the BRIDGS (Bringing Research and Innovation into the Debate on Guns and Society) Initiative for Gun Studies.
Earning a degree in journalism and mass communication this May from the Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, McGee’s path leads to one of the nation’s top law schools — after being accepted at four schools, he plans to study at the UCLA School of Law this fall. He says this path was opened by his Barrett honors thesis about the Second Amendment.
“I wanted a thesis that would combine both my writing passions in journalism, as well as some of the legal research that I'd found myself to be interested in,” McGee said. “I've learned that Second Amendment law, since the Bruen decision especially, is a new frontier in the legal field.”
McGee’s passion for constitutional law developed over the course of his time at ASU. He said he became interested in the Second Amendment when he realized recent developments in firearms law, particularly Justice Clarence Thomas’ opinion in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, could have a transformative effect on how the Supreme Court thinks about the nature of constitutional rights.
In that 2022 case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a New York State law — one requiring applicants for a pistol concealed carry license to show “proper cause,” or a special need distinguishable from that of the general public — was unconstitutional and that the ability to bear arms in public was a constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment.
By tracing the logic of the Bruen decision back to Thomas’ early commitments to Black radical politics and free market economic principles, McGee’s thesis aimed to shed light on the future of Second Amendment jurisprudence and the intellectual influences of Thomas.
McGee has been awarded the Barrett Outstanding Researcher Award and Barrett Downtown’s Gold Standard Award for Best Thesis in acknowledgement of the originality and depth of his research.
McGee found the perfect home for his innovative research at the Bringing Research and Innovation into the Debate on Guns in Society (BRIDGS) initiative.
As BRIDGS founding director Jennifer Carlson said, “BRIDGS-affiliated undergraduates ask bold questions and think beyond the given paradigms. Sam McGee's project is a case in point: His senior honors thesis highlights the value of using history and sociology, particularly with regard to the politics of race, to make sense of current developments in Second Amendment jurisprudence.”
Alex Trimble Young, the associate director of BRIDGS and honors faculty fellow at Barrett, taught McGee in “The Human Event,” Barrett’s first year signature seminar, and mentored him across his four years at ASU. When it came time to choose a thesis director, McGee reached out to Young to help him build the connection between Barrett and BRIDGS.
“Sam came to his thesis on Second Amendment jurisprudence with chops he had developed at Cronkite,” Young said, connecting his argument on constitutional law to questions of politics and race he had pursued in his journalistic work. The result, Young said, was an “extraordinary” interdisciplinary thesis.
As McGee developed his thesis, Young connected him with Jacob Charles, associate professor of law at the Caruso School of Law at Pepperdine University, and one of the country’s foremost scholars of the Bruen decision. Thanks to Barrett’s External Examiner program and a co-sponsorship from BRIDGS, McGee was able to bring Charles onto his thesis committee.
“I knew that any scholars I put in touch with Sam would find that to be a rewarding relationship,” Young said. “It was a really exciting moment for me in my career just to see how a student could so successfully take advantage of the connections I built in my work as a researcher at BRIDGS.”
Charles praised McGee’s “creative, original, and incisive” thesis, noting that McGee has “a curiosity and passion for the law and for justice that are the hallmarks of the very best students.”
McGee said he did not expect to receive so much support when working on his research and it has made “academia more approachable,” for him.
He said that this thesis not only led him to a career path but also to a quickly transforming field of legal study.
“Looking toward Second Amendment law, what this taught me was this field is going to be changing. It's going to be dynamic, and you have to pay attention in order to stay in the loop,” McGee said.
McGee is a student researcher at the BRIDGS Initiative and a legal intern at Doran Justice, a Phoenix law firm. He hopes to continue his journey researching Second Amendment law and the ever changing landscape of the gun debate.
“I'm very excited to embark on the next step,” McGee said.
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