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:

Constitutional scholar and Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence Rob Natelson released a fantastic book last year called The Original Constitution: What It Actually Said and Meant. The book was and is a huge hit. What the book did was fill a gap that was left by constitutional scholars who never got around to writing a comprehensive look at our nation’s founding document aimed at the lay person. Sure there are a lot of books out there on particular parts of the Constitution, but none that cover the whole shebang and none of them were written with your average Joe (or Jane) in mind. Rob Natelson stepped up and filled that gap.

Turns out however that Rob was not satisfied the first time around. He went back and re-worked his first edition and created and even bigger and better second edition to his book. You can find the second edition both on Amazon.com and the Tenth Amendment Center’s store. So how is this second edition different than the already fantastic first edition? Rob explains all that in this iVoices.org podcast with one of my minions Justin Longo. You can also go to Rob’s blog – constitution.i2i.org – to see what Rob has to say about his second edition.

It’s difficult to improve upon a great thing. But somehow Rob did it with this new book. Thank you for all your hard work Rob. You are doing an incredible job educating us mere mortals on our nation’s founding era history.

Speaking of education… don’t forget that THIS FRIDAY is our huge Constitution event down in Colorado Springs at the Antlers Hilton. There are a few spots remaining, so please RSVP as soon as you can. Do not miss this opportunity to see constitution scholars Rob Natelson and Dave Kopel in action!

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!

Few things I want to highlight real quick:

Editorial page editor of the Colorado Springs Gazette Wayne Laugesen was kind enough to write a little blurb about and link to the show we did a couple weeks ago. We talked about the horribly fallacious campaign to smear the Springs with deputy director of the Colorado chapter of Americans For Prosperity Sean Paige.

While we’re on the topic of the Gazette, make sure to check out the Reason Foundation’s Colorado kid wonder Harris Kenny in his op-ed, Colorado Should be Wary of Handouts to Hollywood.

Over on our Environmental Policy page, Amy Oliver shows us once again how much green it takes to be green. Both taxpayers and ratepayers will find their wallets just a bit lighter because of this. Additionally, over on Townhall.com Amy has a little fun with our national debt. Guess how many Superbowl tickets you could buy with our national debt? You’ll have to check out Amy’s article to find out.

Constitutional scholar Rob Natelson shares his thoughts on the most recent ruling against Obamacare on his blog, constitution.i2i.org. That unconstitutional individual mandate just can’t catch a break these days…

I’ve talked a number of times about how we can tackle our federal government’s spending problem. Each time the subject gets brought up, I must make mention of the Constitution’s solution to the problem. Our Constitutional scholar Rob Natelson puts it like this: the Founders envisioned a time when the problem would be Congress itself. So what to do when Congress is out of control and won’t rein in itself? Well then it’s up to the states to take control.

The next logical question is: how do the states take control? Answer: A convention for proposing amendments! The states must come together and address the issue of runaway spending by our runaway Congress. Rob has been talking about this solution for quite some time, but after a couple years of incredibly in-depth scholarship, he’s written his masterpiece for Tennessee Law Review: Proposing Constitutional Amendments By Convention: Rules Governing The Process.

Rob’s article contains the most in-depth look at our Founding era’s historical record on Article V conventions ever put down on paper. I suggest giving it a read if you’d like to become educated on this topic so riddled with fallacies and misconceptions. Additionally, check out this iVoices.org podcast Rob did this morning with my minion. It’s probably the best overview of the subject you could get in around 20 minutes time.

Even though the whole debt ceiling fiasco is on its way out, I want to point this iVoices.org podcast in your direction. Last week a new narrative emerged from the debt ceiling = default storyline. It advanced the idea that the president could raise the debt ceiling unilaterally – Congress be damned! As you might have guessed, our constitutional scholar Professor Rob Natelson had some serious constitutional issues with this narrative. It’s no accident that the president does not enjoy both the power of the “sword” and the power of the “purse” at the same time. The Founders rightfully feared a president who was both commander and chief and guardian of the nation’s checkbook. Thus, the idea that President Obama could raise the debt ceiling by himself would have angered (and frightened) the Founders. Professor Rob Natelson addressed this issue in a blogpost on constitution.i2i.org and in this iVoices.org podcast.

The Legislative Council’s executive committee, consisting of 3 Democrats and 3 Republicans, took a vote the other day on whether to oppose the TABOR lawsuit. You might recall that our Taxpayers Bill of Rights is going to court soon to determine whether it violates the Constitution’s guarantee of a “republican form of government.” As with anything TABOR related, the vote came down 3-3 along party lines. You might be thinking, “so what?” This vote was purely symbolic. It doesn’t mean anything. And you would be right, this vote doesn’t change anything. It is also true that this lawsuit against TABOR is purely symbolic. As I’ve stated before, this lawsuit isn’t about TABOR. It’s about our right to petition our government. What this lawsuit argues is that citizens do not have a right to petition their government and vote on constitutional amendments. Thus, it endangers all of our citizen enacted amendments to our state constitution – not just TABOR. Our resident constitutional scholar Rob Natelson disagrees. He argued in this Colorado Springs Gazette op-ed that the evidence is solidly on the side of petition rights and of TABOR. The Founders would have had no beef with citizens voting on constitutional amendments. In fact, they were quite fond of it in their day. So while this latest effort to undermine TABOR might result is some more public trashing of its good name, it won’t result in anything substantial.

Exactly who is Chief Justice John Marshall? That question has special importance today. Due to a belief that Chief Justice Marshall was a progressive judicial activist, many today are using his words as ammunition in the case for our overbearing and clearly unconstitutional federal regulatory state. However, like he’s often done many times before, Professor Rob Natelson is here to set the record straight. In a recent blog post on constitution.i2i.org and this iVoices.org podcast, Rob explains why Marshall may have gotten this ill deserved reputation and also why it’s wrong. Rob explores three cases which, when taken in the context of the law and language of the time, irrefutably dispel the notion that Marshall would have ever been in favor of the vast regulatory state we have now – let alone the health control law. In fact, Rob and Dave Kopel let Marshall refute Obamacare in his own words! How’d they do that? With a little research and a dash of creativity. In this article, “Health Laws of Every Description”: John Marshall’s Ruling on a Federal Health Care Law,” Rob and Dave use Marshall’s own words to help destroy another pro-Obamacare argument.

Rob Natelson must spend his days and nights repelling the incessant, research-free, and totally weak arguments for Obamacare’s constitutionality. This latest example of poor 18th century scholarship points to a 1798 statute that allegedly shows that the original understanding of the Constitution is broad enough to authorize federal health care programs. No way says Rob. You can read Rob’s full response to this nonsense on his blog and listen to Rob on the latest podcast from iVoices.org.