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Latest
Supreme Court amicus briefs on gun crime in Mexico. Mexico's amici take shots at our brief in Smith and Wesson v. Mexico. Reason/Volokh Conspiracy. Feb. 18, 2025.
The Social Cost of Nullifying the Right to Arms: The Case of Mexico. 62 South Texas Law Review 137 (2025). With Joseph G.S. Greenlee and Bhav Ninder Singh.
Smith & Wesson v. Mexico. No. 23-1141. Supreme Court amicus brief of the National Rifle Association, FPC Action Foundation, and Independence Institute. Merits brief on Mexico's abusive, unlawful lawsuit against American firearms manufacturers. Dec. 3, 2024. Reason/Volokh Conspiracy. Sept. 4, 2024. Cited and quoted by the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, and CNN.
What we do: The Second Amendment Project at the Independence Institute. Kopel describes how much the Second Amendment Project has accomplished in the last third of a century. Independence Institute. Dec. 4, 2024. 89 seconds.
The History of Machine Guns. Oct. 18, 2024. University of Wyoming Firearms Research Center. 31 minutes.
Snope v. Brown. No. 24-203. Amicus brief of International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association, Professors of Second Amendment Law And History, and Independence Institute. In support of cert. petition in challenge to Maryland ban on common rifles. Sept. 23, 2024.
Short articles and
commentary
Supreme Court amicus briefs on gun crime in Mexico. Mexico's amici take shots at our brief in Smith and Wesson v. Mexico. Reason/Volokh Conspiracy. Feb. 18, 2025.
"El atentado contra Trump hace temer un derramamiento de sangre en la campaña." La Razon (Spain). July 21, 2024. Interview by Jesus Buitrago.
Law Enforcement Trainers File Scotus Amicus Brief against Maryland Rifle Ban. Citizens should be able to choose the same high-quality defensive arms that peace officers choose. Reason/Volokh Conspiracy. Mar. 18, 2024.
Podcasts, Radio & Video
Colorado Inside Out. Feb. 28, 2025. Colo. Dept. of Transportation produces bogus numbers about Denver International Airport economic impact. Colorado state government found to be paying Medicaid for dead people, after failing three previous anti-fraud audits. Nuclear energy is safer and better for the environment than wind or solar. Small Business Administration to move out of Denver. Best things: Colorado School of Mines mens BB wins their conference. New Leonardo da Vinci museum in Pueblo.
90 Executive Orders in 30 Days: Trump's Turbulent First Month in Presidency. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Russian language station. 22.02.2025. In Russian.
What Will What Will Trump's Executive Order on Guns Deliver? The Reload videocast. Feb. 13, 2025. 53 minutes.
Colorado Inside Out. Jan. 16, 2025. Denver crime soars as police per capita falls, and Mayor wastes money on DEI staff. Veto of expansion of drug use centers. Backlog of on testing of rape kits. Legislative Republicans make attempt at start at rolling back illegal tax increases. State's transition to all-wind and solar doomed to fail. Worst thing: legislature moves to subsdize Sundance Film Festival, but won't compensate ranchers from losses due to wolf predation. Best thing: Professional Women's Hockey League sets attendance record in Denver game.
Colorado Inside Out. Dec. 12, 2024. Democrats make Colorado's economy one of the worst. Legal case against Uinta Basin Railway expansion is weak. Denver proposal to eliminate parking minimums for new construction harms neighborhoods. Program to introduct nonnative gray wolves gets even worse. Worst thing: State Sen. Jacquez-Lewis caught abusing aides again. Best thing: Milei produces a budget surplus in Argentina for a first time in over a century.
What we do: The Second Amendment Project at the Independence Institute. Kopel describes how much the Second Amendment Project has accomplished in the last third of a century. Independence Institute. Dec. 4, 2024. 89 seconds.
The History of Machine Guns. Oct. 18, 2024. University of Wyoming Firearms Research Center. 31 minutes.
The First Installment of Our Legal Scholar Series: Dave Kopel. NRA. July 15, 2024. Interview re Kopel article How the British Gun Control Program Precipitated the American Revolution, 6 Charleston Law Review 283 (2012). 35 minutes.
Media quotes and cites
Denver photo exhibit challenges presumptions about black gun owners. Complete Colorado. Feb. 11, 2025. Ari Armstrong.
Guns and Grammar: Though awkward and antiquated, the Second Amendment’s syntax and grammar unambiguously protect gun rights. Reason. Jan. 27, 2025. Jay Stooksberry.
AR-15 Rifles and the Constitution: Does the Second Amendment include a right to own one? The Supreme Court might soon decide..Wall Street Journal. Editorial Board. Dec. 8, 2024.
Evolution of Machine Guns: A Historical Perspective by David Kopel ~ VIDEO. Ammoland. Dec. 6, 2024. F. Riehl.
Second Amendment Roundup: Supreme Court Grants Cert in Mexico v. Smith & Wesson. Reason, Volokh Conspiracy. Oct. 22, 2024. Stephen Halbrook.
Wyoming Man Trying to Get Federal Machine Gun Ban Overturned. Cowboy State Daily. Oct. 18, 2024. Clair McFarland.
Dangers of Misrepresenting History: Malcolm Gladwell, Sir John Knight, & the 2nd Amendment. Sept. 18, 2024. F. Riehl.
Do Americans Have a Constitutional Right to an AR-15? Gun-Rights Groups Ask the Supreme Court Firearms advocates fight state restrictions on the most popular rifle in the U.S. Wall Street Journal. Aug. 26, 2024. Jacob Gershman (paywall).
Fourth Circuit upholds Maryland gun licensing law. Courthouse News. Aug. 23, 2024. Joe Dodson.
Minnesota's 'Draconian' Self-Defense Ruling Exposes Loophole In Wyoming Law. Cowboy State Daily, Aug. 2, 2024. Clair McFarland.
Latest Monographs and Journal articles
The Social Cost of Nullifying the Right to Arms: The Case of Mexico. 62 South Texas Law Review 137 (2025). With Joseph G.S. Greenlee and Bhav Ninder Singh.
The History of Bans on Types of Arms Before 1900. Including handguns, Bowie knives, daggers, slungshots, brass knuckles, cannons and more. 50 Journal of Legislation 223 (Notre Dame) (2024). With Joseph G.S. Greenlee.
Protecting Law-abiding Firearms Businesses from Abusive Lawsuits. Independence Institute Issue Paper No. 1-2023. Examines bills in Colorado and elsewhere to eliminate firearms stores and manufacturers by junk lawsuits.
Restoring the right to bear arms: New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen. In 2021-22 Cato Supreme Court Review (Trevor Burrus ed., Sept. 16, 2022).
Guns Kill People, and Tyrants with Gun Monopolies Kill the Most. 25 Gonzaga Journal of International Law 20 (2021).
Red Flag Laws: Proceed with Caution. 45 (Alabama) Law & Psychology Review 39 (2021).
Latest Books
Colorado Constitutional Law and History (2d ed. 2022). Treatise and textbook on Colorado's wonderful Constitution--and on how the courts and other branches have nullified much of it. Buy at: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million, IndieBound (to arrange pickup at a local bookstore), or from Vandeplas Publishing. Any of these vendors will sell you the printed book. If you want the ebook, you must buy from Vandeplas and must have an academic email account to install the reader software.
Firearms Law and the Second Amendment: Regulation, Rights and Policy (Aspen Publishers, 3d ed. 2022). With Nicholas J. Johnson, George A. Mocsary, E. Gregory Wallace, Donald E. Kilmer. Authors' supplemental website. Free chapter 3, the American colonies.
Courts and Legislatures
Colorado Senate written testimony on SB25-033, ban on semiautomatic long guns. Colorado Senate State Affairs Committee. Jan. 28, 2025.
Smith & Wesson v. Mexico. No. 23-1141. Supreme Court amicus brief of the National Rifle Association, FPC Action Foundation, and Independence Institute. Merits brief on Mexico's abusive, unlawful lawsuit against American firearms manufacturers. Dec. 3, 2024. Reason/Volokh Conspiracy. Sept. 4, 2024. Cited and quoted by the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, and CNN.
Snope v. Brown. No. 24-203. Amicus brief of International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association, Professors of Second Amendment Law And History, and Independence Institute. In support of cert. petition in challenge to Maryland ban on common rifles. Sept. 23, 2024.
Smith & Wesson v. Mexico, No. 23-1141 (U.S. Sup. Ct., May 22, 2024). Amicus brief for National Rifle Association and Independence Institute in suppport of cert. petition. Mexico is copying the malicious tactics of the American gun prohibition lobby in previous decades, with meritless litigation designed to destroy the firearms industry through litigation expenses. Mexico's crime problem is self-inflicted by its corrupt government and its nullification of the Mexican Constitution right to arms. Claims that a large percentage of Mexican crime guns are American, or recently acquired in America, are provably false. Result: Cert. granted.
United States v. Rahimi. No. 22-915 (U.S. Sup. Ct., Oct. 4, 2023). Amicus brief. This brief, alone among the all the briefs filed, distinguished the two subparts of 18 U.S.Code 922(g)(C). The (C)(i) restriction arms rights of individuals whom a court has found to be "a credible threat" to intimate partners does not infringe the Second Amendment. The (C)(ii) restriction is based on no findings at all, and is an infringement. Result: The Supreme Court's June 21, 2024, decision upheld (C)(i) (the subsection under which Rahimi had been convicted) and pointedly stated that the Court was not deciding that (C)(ii) is constitutional.
Garland v. Cargill, No. 22-976 (U.S. Sup. Ct., Jan. 26, 2023). Amicus brief. The Court's June 14, 2024, decision agreed with the position argued in the amicus brief that the federal statutory definition of "machinegun" as a gun that "automatically" fires more than one bullet by "a single function of the trigger" can not be redefined by ATF to mean "a single pull." The brief was filed on behalf of Senators Cynthia M. Lummis (Wyoming), Mike Lee (Utah), Kevin Cramer (North Dakota), John Barrasso (Wyoming), Pete Ricketts (Nebraska), Steve Daines (Montana), Cindy Hyde-Smith (Mississippi), Mike Rounds (South Dakota), Markwayne Mullin (Oklahoma); Professors Royce de R. Barondes (Missouri, emeritus), F. Lee Francis (Mississippi College School of Law), Nicholas J. Johnson (Fordham), Donald E.J. Kilmer, Jr. (Lincoln Law School), Joyce Malcolm (George Mason, emerita), Joseph V. Muha (Akron), Joseph E. Olson (Mitchell-Hamline, emeritus), David A. Raney (Hillsdale), Glenn H. Reynolds (Tennessee), E. Gregory Wallace (Campbell); and the Independence Institute. Result: the Court agreed that the National Firearms Act statute does not cover bump stocks.
NRA v. Vullo, No. 22-842 (U.S. Sup. Ct., Jan. 16, 2023). Amicus brief. The Court's decision of May 30, 2024, agreed with the brief that the threats of NY Governor and his financial regulatory agency against banks and insurances companies that do business with the NRA violated the First Amendment. The brief was filed on behalf of the Second Amendment Foundation, John Locke Foundation, and Independence Institute.
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