Because of Dave Kopel’s dedication and hard work over the last couple decades, there are hundreds, if not thousands of people in the Washington DC and Chicago areas who would have been shot and killed, but instead will live full and fruitful lives. These people can thank folks like Dave Kopel who helped shape the decisions in McDonald v. Chicago and DC v. Heller – where handguns and the self-defense they bring, became legal once again. New evidence has surfaced that shows the crime rate has plummeted in both cities since the monumental Supreme Court decisions came down. Therefore, many people owe their lives to the work Second Amendment scholars like Dave Kopel did to help turn the tide in favor of gun (self-defense) rights.

Thanks Dave! Our cities are much safer places thanks to you.

What an event! I can’t begin to describe to my readers how incredibly epic our Constitutional Law event was last month. Our two resident ConLaw scholars Dave Kopel of the University of Denver Law School and Rob Natelson, formerly of the University of Montana Law School wow’ed the crowd with their presentations. We completely sold out the Antlers Hilton auditorium down in Colorado Springs with hundreds of liberty loving nerds who wanted to learn more about the supreme law of the land – our Constitution. In case you missed it, or wanted to relive it again, we’ve got the entire event posted on YouTube. You can find the playlist here.

I also wanted to post the schedule of the event that you will see on the videos, including the lecture titles from Rob and Dave. Here is what was presented in order:

Below are the 4 videos from the event:

PART 1:

PART 2:

PART 3:

PART 4:

Concealed carry is a hot topic in Congress now with a bill coming out of the House called the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011 (H.R. 822). This bill would extend conceal carry rights across state lines, allowing a legal gun owner who lives in Colorado to freely move about the country with his or her legal firearm and enter, say Illinois. The bill does not change the law in regards to obtaining a permit in your home state, it only prevents the other 49 states from infringing on your Second Amendment rights upon entering their state. As with all issues Second Amendment, our Dave Kopel weighed in on the issue. On Monday he was featured in the Cato Daily Podcast to discuss H.R. 822 and its implications on gun rights and interstate travel rights.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the podcast occurs when Dave recalls a question he received from Rep. Mike Quigley while giving testimony on 822 in the House subcommittee. Rep. Quigley points out that conservatives in Congress like to talk about states’ rights, but when it comes down to it, states’ rights are merely a convenience issue for them. For example, doesn’t H.R. 822 challenge states’ rights?

You’ll have to listen to the Cato podcast to get Dave’s answer. It’s truly fascinating and extremely insightful.

UPDATE: Here is a link to Dave Kopel on the Amy Oliver radio show this morning talking about this issue. Thanks to 1310 KFKA for the audio!

Our resident Constitutional Law and Second Amendment expert Dave Kopel weighed in on the hot issue of personal liberty vs. national security in this issue of La Voz (Colorado’s #1 Hispanic publication). With the passing of the 10th anniversary of 9/11 just days ago, the Patriot Act has taken center stage once again. Take a look at what Dave thinks about the national security measures we’ve taken in the last 10 years.

Give your love life a break this weekend and watch Devil’s Advocate this Friday night. First, former FEMA director Michael Brown joins me to talk about his book, “Deadly Indifference.” Then the Independence Institute’s Dave Kopel discusses the ongoing gunrunning scandals involving the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. That’s 8:30 PM Friday night on Colorado Public Television 12.

Independence Institute writers have been a busy crew recently, publishing works on issues that include out-of-control public sector hiring, challenges to Obamacare, Governor Hickenlooper’s poor veto choices, and correcting misinterpretations of the U.S. Constitution. Let’s get to it.

Senior Fellow Fred Holden’s piece on how public sector hiring has dramatically outpaced private sector hiring in Colorado can be found here in the Salida Mountain Mail newspaper, or here in the Summit Daily newspaper. This article is a must read, but fair warning, there is math involved. Money quote:

To meet the rate of government job growth, 165,000 more private sector jobs would have been necessary. “Created government jobs,” however, increased by 7,299 – 707 “classified” and, 6,644 “non-unclassified.” For comparison, a more recent analysis from 2005-10 showed total jobs grew by 1 percent – government up 6.9 percent, private down .2 percent, with 132,000 non-government jobs required to match government job growth.

In short, public sector growth is out of control.

Over at the Health Policy Solutions website, Research Director Dave Kopel lays out all the ongoing constitutional challenges to the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (PPACA, aka Obamacare) that the U.S. Supreme Court could potentially hear in its next session. Writes Dave:

When the PPACA was moving through Congress, there was a lot of bluster from proponents of the law, who insisted that there were absolutely no potential constitutional problems. Most famously, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi scoffed “Are you serious?” to a journalist’s question about the law’s constitutionality. As it turns out, there are a lot of serious questions. Rather than being solidly grounded in established constitutional law doctrine, the PPACA pushes into several gray areas. That doesn’t mean that the appellate courts and then the Supreme Court will rule against the PPACA, but it does mean that to uphold the PPACA, courts will have to break new doctrinal ground.

Writing in the Boulder Daily Camera, research associate and health care blogger Brian Schwartz makes the case that Governor Hickenlooper erred in vetoing Senate Bill 213, which would have raised enrollment fees for some families in CHP+, a state-run heath plan for children. As Brian notes:

CHP+ and its counterparts in other states “crowd out” commercial insurance such that parents drop commercial coverage to enroll. MIT economist and past Obama advisor Jonathan Gruber finds a “crowd-out rate of about 60 percent.” The reverse is also true. When parents drop CHP+, some buy insurance. The Congressional Budget Office reported that in 2005, between 50 and 77 percent of kids in households with incomes affected by SB 213 had commercial insurance.

Also, be sure and check out Constitutional Scholar Rob Natelson’s takedown of Time magazines’ recent cover story by Richard Stengel on the (incorrect) meaning of the U.S. Constitution.

In one of the most informative op-eds I have ever read, our Research Director and Law guru Dave Kopel discusses the Obamacare cases that could potentially be heard by the Supreme Court in the upcoming session, which begins in October 2011 and will end in June 2012. We’ve got several chances at getting a “writ of certiorari” to challenge Obamacare’s constitutionality and Dave is certain one of them will get the proverbial nod. As Dave explains, a writ of certiorari is the legal term used to describe the Supreme Court’s action in picking up a case to be heard.

Perhaps most interesting to me in the article is when Dave points out that one of the cases addresses an area of constitutionality that none of the others does. In most instances, the legal challenge is meant to take on Obamacare’s individual mandate via the Commerce Power and/or the Necessary and Proper Clause. But in Seven-Sky v. Holder, the plaintiffs are challenging the mandate on First Amendment grounds! Turns out, the mandate to buy “Western style” health insurance infringes on some people’s religious freedoms. I’ll let Dave explain,

All the Seven-Sky plaintiffs are individuals who, for one reason or another, have religious objections to using the standard services of western medicine. The PPACA contains no exemption for such people… They argue that the mandate violates the First Amendment’s guarantee of free exercise of religion, as protected by a federal statute called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). That 1993 law provides that the federal “Government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.

Isn’t that fascinating? Obamacare has some waivers and exemptions – mostly for friends of the White House and some religious groups like the Amish – but none for these folks. It will be interesting to see which of these cases the Supreme Court decides to take up. I will be doubly interested if the SCOTUS decides to take this particular First Amendment case.

What happens when an avowed anti-gunny named Thom Hartmann tries to take on Dave Kopel? Well, find out yourself.

Oooooohhhhhh, that must sting a little.

U.S. intervention in Libya, ObamaCare health benefits exchanges and criminal sentencing reforms are all article topics that Independence Institute writers had published last week.

First check out research director Dave Kopel in The Daily Caller as he explains why the Libyan intervention is not wholly legal.

Then our health care guru Linda Gorman wonders if Colorado should establish an ObamaCare health benefits exchange. You can read Linda here in the Summit Daily, or here in the Salida Mountain Mail.

You can also check out my own piece in the Huffpost Denver on why fiscal conservatives should want parolees to succeed in Colorado.

The Independence Institute is pleased to present the upcoming event: A Constitutional Guide to Fighting Federal Overreach. Come join Independence Institute constitutional scholars David Kopel and Rob Natelson on Sunday, May 15 from 1:15 to 5:00 PM at Red Rocks Community College for this important program designed to arm citizens with reliable, factual information they need to help restore liberty and constitutional government in the United States. Participants will also learn how to identify constitutional myths that, intentionally or not, can undermine the cause.

David Kopel is Research Director of the Independence Institute and one of the nation’s leading experts on the Second Amendment. The author of numerous books and articles, he also teaches Advanced Constitutional Law at the University of Denver.

Rob Natelson is Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence at the Independence Institute. He was formerly professor of constitutional law at the University of Montana, and has authored numerous books and articles, including the 2010 book, The Original Constitution: What It Actually Said and Meant.

Register online here. Or Call Mary at (303) 279-6536, Ext. 102. Cost is ten dollars and space is limited.