Independence Institute research director Dave Kopel has a piece in the New York Times‘ Room for Debate series on the Arizona shootings, and calls by some for more guns, rather than more gun control.  Money quote from Dave:

There’s no guarantee that evil-doers will always be stopped, but the record is clear that oftentimes lives are saved when victims can fight back.

Read the whole thing here.

You know that one childhood friend you’ve got in your close group of friends who can’t ever seem to get anything right? He’s the guy who can’t drive anywhere without getting lost or getting a ticket. He always seems to have forgotten his wallet after you all go out for a beer and some wings. He can’t even remember to bring the wings to your house to watch the big game. He can’t hold a job, but of course it is “never his fault.” You’ve longed since learned not to let him borrow anything because you won’t ever get it back. And if you do, it won’t be in one piece anymore. (Speaking of, he still has my Frampton Comes Alive record).

Regardless, he’s still a good friend and a part of your crew. “The guys” as your wife calls it. You can’t cut him loose, that would be cruel. And besides, you guys have a ton of history together. As the years go on, you and your buddies have learned how to deal with him in a way that limits the damage he can do. For example, no one was willing to let him hold the rings at your wedding. Or plan the bachelor party for that matter. Or stand at the alter near anything breakable. This is what you have to do when you have that friend.

The moral of this story is that in large part, government is that “friend.” It’s the bumbling, forgetful, wasteful, mean, and awkward friend with sticky fingers you can’t take anywhere but have to anyway. The Constitution is the document that attempts to limit the damage this overbearing friend can have on our lives. (Even the Founders had that friend in their circle. Alexander Hamilton perhaps?) In other words, the Constitution prevents your overbearing friend from making a pass at your wife during her baby shower because it prevents him from showing up in the first place. Without it, your friend is set loose, fully able to wreak havoc anywhere and everywhere.

Take for example the Colorado gun-permit database. Why on earth we would want the bumbling, wasteful, perpetual screw-up government to keep such a database is beyond me. Isn’t it obvious that if tasked with doing something outside its useful (enumerated) activities, it would mess the entire thing up? Take a look at the list of errors on top of errors on top of mistakes this database has. The government can’t even keep a simple list of names going for cryin’ out loud! How could we expect it to manage the entire health care system? Or keep an anonymous and accurate All-Payer Health Care Cost Database?

Like not giving the car keys to your friend that can’t get anything right, how about we quit giving government the keys to our private lives? Not only can we not trust them with the information, we can’t even trust that they will get the information right to begin with. It’s time we learn the lesson we have all learned from our childhood friend: limit the damage by limiting the responsibility. Don’t give him your wedding rings. Don’t give him your car keys or your favorite records. And for Pete’s sake, don’t give him information you want kept secret!

If you’re a big Dave Kopel fan like myself, you probably find it difficult following everything the guy is doing. The man is prolific. Between writing a multitude of articles for a variety of different outlets, he’s constantly on the radio, on TV, in Washington DC testifying on something I probably wouldn’t understand, lecturing on Constitutional Law at DU, making an appearance somewhere on something I probably wouldn’t understand, or avoiding the rush of fans that descend on him when he’s in public. He does more in a day than I do in a decade.

Therefore, with a little help from Dave himself, here’s a quick list of stuff Dave’s done recently that most ordinary humans could not do:

Wrote an amicus brief in the McDonald v. Chicago Supreme Court case that was cited 3 times in the decision. Wrote a critical article for America’s 1st Freedom explaining the Supreme Court opinions in McDonald. Dave sat down with me for a podcast and a TV show about the crucial McDonald decision.

Here’s an America’s 1st Freedom article on Dave’s book Aiming for Liberty.

Dave flew to Washington DC to provide testimony on Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan and her Second Amendment views. Here is video of Kopel’s testimony with a couple of followup Q&A from the Senators.

Catch Dave at Liberty on the Rocks Red Rocks this coming Monday the 19th at the Old Chicago in Lakewood.

After you’re done catching up with all that, Dave will have a dozen new things out to read, watch, and listen to, so stay tuned here.  We are so honored to have him here at Independence.  Thanks Dave for all you do!

On this week’s Devil’s Advocate, Independence Institute Research director David Kopel joins me to discuss the recent, and hugely significant, U.S. Supreme Court case McDonald v Chicago, and what the decision means for the Second Amendment and gun rights. Dave also discusses his recent testimony at the Elena Kagan Supreme Court nominee hearings. That’s this Friday at 8:30 PM on Colorado Public Television 12, re-broadcast the following Monday at 1:30 PM.

Congratulations to our Second Amendment zen master Dave Kopel! The McDonald v. Chicago Supreme Court decision came down this morning, 5-4 on the side of American citizens right to bear arms. We’ve talked a lot about this decision and how important it was for gun owners who don’t happen to reside in the District of Columbia, and trust me, there is a lot more on the way. But for now, I’d like to congratulate Dave on his second huge Supreme Court victory. And just like in Heller, Dave’s amicus brief was cited several times in McDonald. Dave explains on his webpage:

Kopel’s amicus brief for the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association (as well as the Independence Institute, CORE, and other law enforcement organizations and scholars) was cited three times in the Supreme Court’s opinions in McDonald v. Chicago. The brief is cited once by Justice Alito’s plurality opinion (footnote 2) and twice by Justice Stevens’ dissent.

Stay tuned for Dave’s commentary on this momentous decision. I’ll provide some links to his podcasts and writing on McDonald in the coming days here on the Cauldron.

Over the course of the last year or so, we’ve had the opportunity to hear Dave Kopel speak several times about the soon to be decided McDonald v. Chicago Supreme Court case. (To listen to Dave speak on this massively important gun rights issue, listen here, here, here, or here).

In a nutshell, the case will decide whether the Second Amendment is incorporated into the 14th Amendment, and therefore enforceable against state and local governments. For example, the Heller decision stated that the Federal government cannot ban handguns in the District of Columbia – where the Feds have jurisdiction. But what about the city of Chicago in the state of Illinois? Can a city ban handguns? That important decision will be coming down shortly from the Supreme Court in the McDonald case.

Yesterday, Dave discussed the issue of incorporation via the 14th Amendment at his other day job at the Cato Institute. Fair warning: this podcast is chock full of heavy duty legal jargon and constitution-speak. You might need to dust off that old legal textbook you still have laying around to get through it.

According to the Daily News, New York City’s multi-millionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg’s gun-grabbing mayors group is dropping a cool quarter-million dollars for an ad campaign, including one in Colorado, to pimp Bloomberg-supported federal legislation to close the alleged “gun show loophole.”  But it is not all smooth sailing

Last Tuesday (April 20)  Denver defense attorney Jeralyn Merrit wrote that, “for the first time since 2002″ she had rejected putting an ad on her excellent criminal justice and political blog, TalkLeft.com.  So what made her reject the ad?  According to Jeralyn:

It was an ad for gun control, that began in big letters, “Keep Guns Out of the Hands of Criminals” and urged people to support new laws on sales at gun shows. Given the focus of this blog, to protect the rights of those accused of crime and particularly, constitutional rights, I would have recoiled every time I logged on to my own blog.  So, even though it would have paid for TalkLeft’s hosting service for a full month (no small amount since we’re on our own server), I rejected it.

Way to stick to your guns, Jeralyn.

The Denver Post, on the other hand, had no problem taking an ad for Bloomberg’s bad gun bill.

Check out Independence Institute Research Director and Second Amendment scholar Dave Kopel in Saturday’s Denver Post in response to a full-page ad the Post ran urging Senator Mark Udall to get on-board the Bloomberg bandwagon.  Writes Kopel:

According to the ad, the Bloomberg bill would nationalize Colorado’s rule about background checks at gun shows. But in fact, only a small fraction of the Bloomberg bill addresses the issue of background checks. The rest of the bill has a much more aggressive agenda.

Check out the whole thing here.

There’s few things in this world more fun than watching Dave Kopel debate. Especially when it concerns his bread and butter – the Second Amendment. Tonight Dave will be at CSU debating the merits of conceal carry on campus.

Colorado State University recently overturned its 7-year-old policy allowing licensed concealed carry on campus. In the wake of CSU’s decision to ban concealed carry, Students for Concealed Carry on Campus invites the public to attend a debate about the wisdom, legality, and safety of allowing licensed concealed carry on campus.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and its state ally, Colorado Ceasefire, plan to participate. Concealed carry advocates Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden and the Independence Institute’s Dave Kopel will be participating as well. The debate is expected to last about an hour, with time for questions.

That’s tonight, from 6pm to 8pm at the CSU campus in room “Clark A103.”

You can visit the Facebook event page here.

From tonight’s Independent Thinking…