Interview with Stephen Halbrook: The Supreme Court and Guns

A woman, who had a Pennsylvania carry permit, gets arrested in New Jersey, not knowing that they don’t issue carry permits—and certainly not to out-of-state residents.

On April 26th, attorney Stephen Halbrook, notably involved in several major Second Amendment-related Supreme Court cases, joined Merion West‘s Erich Prince. He has also written on the history of the Second Amendment and on gun control policies in 20th century Europe. He discusses in this interview the Supreme Court’s ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller, common arguments in favor of guns, and the Republican Party’s shift to become more unabashedly pro-Second Amendment.

To get started, you were involved in preparing the amicus curiae brief on behalf of 250 members of the House and 55 Senators for the Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. Heller (2008). Perhaps you can walk us through that case and, more importantly, some of the reasoning of John Paul Stevens in his dissenting opinion, which was joined by some of the Court’s other left-leaning justices.

To start with, we’re talking about District of Columbia v. Heller, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008, and that was the first time the Supreme Court rendered a very comprehensive opinion on the meaning of the Second Amendment.

My role in this manner is, first of all, I had done previous litigation and written several books on the Second Amendment and its history. By the time that case got to the Court, I represented the majority of members of the U.S. Senate and of the U.S. House of Representatives to basically say that the United States Congress has always considered the Second Amendment to be an individual right of law-abiding citizens. This includes commonly possessed arms such as handguns, which were banned in the District of Columbia starting in 1976.