Welcome to the texas book festival. Im rick dunham, the Washington Bureau chief of the Houston Chronicle and the creator of the texas on the potomac, and been hijacked to perry per president ial because some governor is running for president right now. In my extracurricular life im Journalism Institute of which the crown jewel is the National Journalism library and libraries are important because libraries are what the texas book festival is all about. The book festival raises money for Public Libraries in texas and for literacy programs. All the books you buy benefit the libraries of the state of texas. I highly recommend that you buy gunfight. Our author will sign books after our program in the book signing tent up congress avenue. So, ive been asked by the folks at cspan to ask you to turn off or silence your cell phones. Weve had some problems earlier today. And if you want to take out your concealed weapons permits now, its probably a good time. Also, concealed weapons, dont take out because if you take them out, theyre not concealed anymore. What were here today to talk about gunfight, the battle over the right to bear arms in america. Its written by adam winkler. Hes a professor of law at ucla and a specialist in american constitutional law. His wideranging scholarship has touched on a diverse array of topics including the right to bear arms, affirmative action, and judicial independence. Hes a frequent contributor the the daily beast and the huff huff post. Hes commentary has been featured in places as varied as cnn, new york times, and the wall street journal. His other published work includes coediting the sixvolume american constitution. Gunfight has received outstanding reviews. Its truly a groundbreaking work. And here to tell us more about it is adam winkler. Ill start with a basic question which is whats the basic idea of the book . Well, thank you. Thank you for the wonderful introduction and thanks to the texas book festival for having me and all of you for being here too. So, gunfight weaves together the dramatic, what one reviewer called grishamlike legal drama behind a land mark Supreme Court case, the first Supreme Court case to clearly and unambiguously hold that the Second Amendment protects an individuals right to hold guns for personal protection. It weaves together that story with the stories of our remarkable, fascinating Hidden History of guns. In my research, i found that the right to bear arms is one of our oldest most established Constitutional Rights, yet at the same time weve also always had gun control. Americans have always tried to balance gun rights with Public Safety. And our efforts to balance those two things have shaped america in really fascinating and unexpected ways. And so i look at the lessons of our efforts to draw that balance between gun rights and Public Safety and also try to map out a way that we can break the current stalemate on guns by looking back to the past and understanding better how the right to bear arms has coexisted with gun control since the founding era. So, the book itself centers on a Supreme Court case probably everyone here knows about, District Of Columbia versus heller. Can you talk a little bit about what the facts were in that case and why the case is so important . Well, the Supreme Court had mentioned the Second Amendment over the years, it had very strenuously avoided ruling on what the meaning of the Second Amendment was. So, despite the fact we know in our culture that everything ends up in the Supreme Court eventually, the Supreme Court was determined for many decades not to rule on the Second Amendment. They just left that to the lower courts and to the legislatures. This heller case was the first time not only the Supreme Court unambiguously held that the Second Amendment protects an individuals right to own guns for personal protection but the first time that the court struck down a law that a gun control law for violating the Second Amendment. And the law that was struck down was a law in washington, d. C. It was a ban on hand guns but also a ban on the use of long guns for anything but Recreational Purposes. So, you could own a rifle or a shotgun but you could only it had to be locked or disassembled and you could only unlock or assemble it for Recreational Purposes like hunting and shooting, target shooting. A d. C. Court had held specifically that if a burglar is breaking into your home, you are not allowed to assemble your gun for selfdefense and use it for selfdefense because that wasnt a recreational purpose. So, you could take your gun and maybe you could bang someone over the head with it, but you werent allowed to shoot someone with it if they were threatening your life. So, the Supreme Court stepped in and ruled on this case. One of the remarkable things about the case was that the lawyers who pursued it, although they were trying to invigorate and find judicial protection for the nras view of the Second Amendment, the nra was opposed to the lawsuit from the get go and did everything they could to stop it from going to the Supreme Court. Why would they do that . Thats counterintuitive. Why would the nra not want this case to go forward . The nras stated reason was they were afraid of losing. They didnt want their view of the Second Amendment rejected by the United States Supreme Court, especially this Supreme Court, which has a majority of republican appointees. It was a conservative court. They didnt want this court to reject that view. That wouldnt help the nra. The lawyers involved in the case were a group of three libertarian lawyers who had no real substantial connections with the gun rights movement, had not argued or litigated gun cases before. They suspected that maybe the nra was fearful actually of winning, that the nra, they told me in interviews the nra survives on crisisdriven fundraising that warns gun owners that the governments coming to get your guns. If the Supreme Court said the government cant come to get your guns, what would that do to the nras crisisdriven fundraising . Whatever the reason, its clear the nra fought tooth and nail to keep this case from ever going to the Supreme Court. So, you were talking earlier about people using guns for personal protection being one of our oldest, most established rights. But the Supreme Court hadnt ruled, as youve said, over these past decades on the definitive meaning of the Second Amendment. So, if the Supreme Court never ruled on it, its been more than two seconds since the bill of rights was created. Why is the right to bear arms such an old and established tradition . Well, its interesting. The Second Amendment has been the subject of so much debate over recent years whether its the right to own guns for personal protection or a collective right of state militias to organize and form without federal interference. But what i found in doing my research for gunfight was that the right to bear arms is one of our oldest most established Constitutional Rights regardless of the Second Amendment. Every state has its own constitution, and almost every one of those states protects the right to bear arms in its state constitution. Clearly a right thats not associated with militia service. Some of those state provisions go back to the original founding. Many of them came in the early 1800s and mid1800s as states joined the union. They added provisions into their constitutions. In addition what i found in research for my book is that whatever you think about the Second Amendment, its pretty clear that the 14 amendment to the constitutional which was one of the provisions adopted right after the civil war to guarantee the freed men their equal rights, the 14th amendment was clearly designed in part to protect the right of the freed men to have guns. Right after the civil war, racist whites in the south were trying to take away freed mens rights to have guns for personal protection. The framework said repeatedly and often one of the purposes of the 14th amendment was to protect the freed mens right to bear arms. Again, you have all these historical disucussions over American History on the right to bear arms. What kind of gun control did the Founding Fathers have, or what was their concept of where we would head with personal use and ownership of guns . Well, the Founding Fathers very firmly believed in civilian ownership of firearms. They didnt believe in a Standing Army. They were afraid a Standing Army would be used corruptly by the president or whoever was governing to run rough shot over the liberties of the people and thought that a guarantee of democratic liberty was in an armed populous. They believed in the citizens militia, the idea that when called out to serve, you would run home, grab your gun, and be ready to fight in an instance, hence the minute men. They also had gun regulation. They barred large portions of the population from owning guns, not only slaves but freed blacks because they were thought to be a risk to Public Safety, they fight join in a revolt against the masters. They also were willing to disarm lawabiding white people, namely loyalist. Were not talking about traders, people fighting for the british. Were talking about what historians estimate were 40 of the population who were opposed to the revolution who thought it was a bad idea taking on the most powerful country in the world, great britain, and if you didnt swear loyalty you would be disarmed. They also had militia laws. They declared any male whos a free male between 18 and 45 was a member of the militia and had to outfit themselves with their own private firearm. It was their own version of the obamas health care individual mandate, only the framers didnt require you to buy insurance. They required you to go out and buy a gun. So, take us through history from the time of the Founding Fathers. How did america and the American Government balance this sense of the right to bear arms with what we would call gun control with curbs on how you could own weaponry . Well, as i mentioned, the Founding Fathers had such curves. We think today of the south as a bastion of support for gun rights, but some of americas earliest gun control laws came in the south. Bans, for instance, on concealed carry of firearms where it became popular in the early 1800s in the south. Those laws werent about disarming africanamericans. They were already disarmed in the south. But those laws were designed to discourage white men from getting into duels, honor duels which were common place in the early 1800s and law makers sought to stop that. Theres been gun control throughout American History. The wild west had some of the most restrictive gun control laws in the nation. Everyone in the untamed wilderness had guns, so much so that stagecoach drivers would ride with someone at great expense next to them with a shotgun in their hand. Our kids still say im riding shotgun when they get in the front seat. That comes from the wild west era. When you came into a town with the civilized people, you had to check your guns the the way you would check your coat like at a cold restaurant in winter. Not a winter in austin where its 90 degrees today, but maybe on the east coast. Where did you check your weapons . You had to check them with the sheriff or leave them at the stables with your horses. In fact as i was researching the book, theres a great photograph of dodge city taken during the height of the wild west period, 1870s and 1880s, and its a picture of dodge city. And it looked exactly like you would expect dodge city to look in the height of the wild west period, wide dusty road, horse tie in front of the saloon. The surprising thing is what lies in the middle of the street is a big billboard that says the carrying of firearms strictly prohibited. You came into a wild west town, you were not allowed to be a gun slinger with your guns on each hip and a rifle in your hand and a derringer hidden in your pants. I get the sense its like going into a restaurant now where you put your umbrella in a rack when you go into town. Now, we know horse thieves were hanged. Did people steal each others pistols or was it like an umbrella, you just picked up your own umbrella as you left town . Im sure there was plenty of thievery in the wild west with guns too. But you would get them and you would give them to the Law Enforcement officer. Research i didnt put the picture in there, but i found a photograph from a bar in juneau, alaska, that has a hand gun that was checked by none other than wyatt earp when he came to visit juneau and he had to leave town for reasons unknown in the middle of the night before the Sheriffs Office opened again. And the sheriff still to this day has the gun he checked and was not able to collect. Why do you think our concepts of the wild west, the gun slingers, are so wrong . Whats the reason that we have this romanticized or fantasized version of it . We think of the wild west as filled with gun fights night and day, guns blazing. We remember incidents like the shootout at the ok corral with wyatt earp where three people died and four people were wounded. Obviously thats been memorialized in movies and film ever since. The image of the wild west is quite wrong in fundamental ways and i think its wrong for the same reason why these places had gun control. If you were a small town on the outskirts of civilization, what did you want to become . You wanted to become a bigger town filled with civilized people. You wanted to attract businessmen and investors and good families that would come and create stability in your town. Small towns today still want those same things. And so thats why they enacted gun control laws so that Business People would feel themselves safe and families would move there because they thought the community was a safe community. What happened was after the frontier was closed, the same places emphasized and glorified the violent incidents of their past to attract tourists and the businesses to serve them. Thats why if you go to tombstone, arizona today you can see a reenactment of the shootout at the ok corral about five times a day. The reason we know so much about that is because it was so extraordinary at the time. It wasnt common place that you would have a shootout. And in fact historians have gone back and figured out that if these towns like tombstone, arizona, deadwood, dodge city, they average less than two murders a year. So, gun fights werent daily events. They were annual events. Its hard to have a discussion of gun rights and gun control without talking about the nra. In the past week, the nras been in the news because herman cain used to be president of the nra. Thats a National Restaurant association. And in texas when you say nra, its only the National Rifle association. Can you give a little historical background on the nra and guns and gun control, its creation . I read that it was once supporter of gun control. Can you explain that . Yeah. I mean, the nra today is known for being a very rarely compromising opponent of gun control. But it really wasnt always this way. The organization was founded after the civil war by two Union Soldiers who were convinced that poor union marksmanship was why the war lasted so long and wanted to improve marksmanship training. In the 1920s and 30s, the nra drafted and endorsed gun control laws, restrictive laws requiring anyone to have a license and only allowing the licenses to go to people who were suitable people with a proper reason for carrying firearms. In fact in the 19 i did research and found in 1934 when the federal government, Congress Passed its first major federal government control, the National Firearms act of 1934. It restricted access to gangster weapons like machine guns and sawed off shotguns. The nra president at the time Carl Frederick was asked to testify about it and he was asked specifically did the Second Amendment have any relevance to the National Firearms act . And his answer from the perspective of today is quite remarkable. He said i have not given it any study from that point of view. So, the head of the nra had never thought whether the most far reaching gun law today was impacted by the Second Amendment. All that changed in the late 1960s, early 1970s when the nra underwent radical transformation and became much more politically active and hard lined. Let me ask why because my first consciousness of guns and gun control was 1968 with the assassination of robert f. Kennedy and Congress Passing the most sweeping gun legislation, at least of that era. Did that play any part of it . And what were the factors that led the nra to pivot on the issue of gun controls . Well, youre absolutely right to talk about the gun control act of 1968 which was the next major federal gun law passed after the federal laws of the 1930s. And the law requires various kinds of licensing for gun dealers, ban the importation of certain kinds of cheap firearms that were associated with urban youth crime and whatnot. That law really sparked and other laws of that era really sparked a movement of people who were really opposed to growing gun control. And the nra, the head of the nra in the 1970s, maxwell rich who endorsed the gun control act, not all of its provisions but endorsed the act overall in the signature publication. Maxwell rich devised a plan. He said i want to retreat from political activity, move from washington and move to Colorado Springs where we can focus on out doorsmen activities and hunting and recreational shooting. This angered a group of disdense in the nra membership and organization who thought guns werent about hunting but were about personal protection in an era of rising crime rates. And this group of dissidents led a dramatic middle of the night coup. They went to the annual Leadership Meeting in 1977 and orchestrated a wellthought out, carefully devised man to oust the leadership of the nra and replace them with the dissident hard liners. They recommitted to activity and made the Second Amendment the heart and soul of the nra. So, when did moses himself, charlton heston, become involved . He became a great spokesman for the nra. Theres the famous pictures, from my cold dead hands. One of the things i found this doesnt directly answer your question. He wasnt the first to say from my cold dead hands. One thing i found in researching gunfight was that among blacks right after that civil war the same attitude was very prevalent. Youll only take my gun from my cold dead hands. Blacks in the south were disarmed, never allowed to own guns. For the first time southern blacks get their hands on guns. Some serve in the union army and the army cant afford to pay its soldiers so allows its soldiers to take their guns home with them and theyll deduct the cost from the back wages that the union army owes them. And the other africanamericans in the south buy guns on the marketplace thats flooded with firearms that had been produced for the war but once the war ended had not the same necessity. And racist organizations like the kkk formed right after the civil war specifically with the goal of gun control, with getting the guns away from africanamericans. As long as the freed men had guns, they would be able to fight back. So, it took to gathering in big groups, going out at night in costume and disguise, large numbers. The reason they were in large numbers was because the africanamericans had guns and they wanted to outnumber the africanamericans. And africanamericans at that time refused to give up their guns and fought valiantly to keep their firearms, also sharing the view from my cold dead hands. Unfortunately, for some they found their guns were taken from their cold head hands zplchlt your book flashes forward to the turmoil of the 1960s and makes to me a surprising connection between the black panthers and the rise of the modern gun rights movement. Can you explain that a little bit . I tell the story in gunfight of one of the most remarkable incidents in the history of guns and gun control which was the day in may of 1967 when a group of 30 black panthers go to the california state capital in sacramento with loaded rifles, shotguns, and pistols, and they walk right up the main steps of the capitol building, walk right into the capitol, and walk right into the legislative chamber thats in session with the lawmakers all there. And the black panthers werent there to do violence. They were there as a political protest as california was considering the adoption of new control laws, laws that were designed to disarm the black panthers who were roaming around oakland with their guns openly displayed. And that law to disarm the panthers was supported not just by democrats but by conservatives in california as well. And in fact the governor at the time strongly supported the law and said he didnt see any reason why someone should be carrying guns on the streets in america today. That governor would go on to become president of the United States ronald reagan. And reagan was a big endorser of this gun control law. And it was the laws that were this law and laws like the gun control act that many people at the time thought was not really designed to control guns but to control urban blacks who were rioting in 1967, the worst riots in American History in detroit and newark, committing crime. There was increase in crime rates especially in urban areas in the 1960s. These laws that were designed to restrict access to black radicals in urban areas, like the black panthers, ended up sparking a backlash among white rural conservatives who were convinced that the government was coming to get their guns next. So, i want to take you forward from there to the debates over gun control and gun rights that weve seen in the last five or ten years. Why do you think the advocates of the Second Amendment rights, the right to bear arms, have become so dominant . There is just about zero chance of passing in any state legislature or in congress anything that would smack of gun control today. What has changed politically over the past decade or two to put us in that situation . Well, i think the major push for gun control in the 1960s and especially the early 1970s was reflection in part of a Great Society philosophy that there are social problems. The government can solve those problems with new legislation. And i think that over the course of the 1970s and the 1980s more and more people lost faith with that idea. I think, you know, some people think the nra and the gun lobby is very powerful because they have a lot of money. The reason why they have a lot of money is because they have a lot of members and they have a lot of people who believe very strongly in their political agenda and support that agenda. The reason the nra is so strong today is because millions of voters go out to vote on election day with this issue in mind and this being the only issue they want to base their vote on. If you can leverage that kind of constituency in american elections youre going to be incredibly successful, so much so that i think the Current Administration in washington wishes to enact more gun control laws but they received an f rating from the brady center after two years because they had only loosened gun control laws in those first two years. So, i think its become one of those issues, especially for democrats. They just dont want to touch that issue because they see it as a political looser. Looking at the debate today. What do you think is wrong with the debates that were having today over gun rights, and would you recast or how would you improve the Public Discourse on guns . Well, i think one of the problems that the gun debate suffers from is that its really been dominated by extremists on both sides of the aisle. You know, we often think of gun rights supporters being very extreme in their opposition to gun control, unwilling to support gun laws because they think even if this law might be a good law its going to lead to civilian disarmament. But i think the other side has been unreasonable over the years as well. Gun control supporters have often sought to take all the guns away, to do what washington, d. C. Did in 1976, to ban hand guns and make other guns not useful for selfdefense. And even after that became obvious as an unrealistic agenda would support often ineffective and sometimes frankly silly laws that really couldnt hope to reduce gun crime. And what i think is that what im hopeful and that i argue in the book is that im hopeful that the heller case that we mentioned earlier on in our discussion might be an opening towards a new future in the gun debate, one where peoples right to have firearms for selfdefense and protected and secured by the Supreme Court in the way that other civil rights are protected. But at the same time creating room for lawmakers to pass effective gun control laws that dont go too far. And im hopeful that maybe this heller case can be the opening that helps to break that political stalemate over guns. Well, we want to hear from the audience, so anyone whos here has a question, please go to the microphone over here and well open up the floor. You got it. Is it on . Yep. This is a tactical question. Justices kagan and sotomayor have pretty explicitly said they think not only was heller wrongly decided and given the opportunity theyll overturn it. I wonder if you think thats still in flux. I guess all constitutional law is. But do you see it as something enduring or something that might in fact quickly and unusually so go by the wayside . You know, its very hard to say whats going to happen in the short term. I dont think itll be overturned. You never know what happens with judicial appointments. Heller was a 54 decision. There was a subsequent decision in 2010, it was also 54. Any kind of judicial appointment might change that. I dont think the democrats really have a big a lot to gain by pushing for nominees that will be hostile to the right to bear arms. I think especially because those decisions were 54, i think republicans in the senate and gun rights supporters on the democratic side are going to be very unlikely to support nominees that could change that vote from 54. And im hopeful that in the long run that this is the kind of decision that is seen as something that helps american politics move forward and thus will be accepted by both sides of the issue. So, earlier today there was a panel on the narco drug wars, and part of that discussion was talking about how a lot of the weapons being used originate here in the United States. So, i was wondering if you had any insights as to ways that we can control that without infringing too much on Second Amendment rights and also a method that would be acceptable to both parties . Right. Well, right now i think that theres probably not a lot of gun control laws that you could realistically get enacted that will have any major effect on these mexican drug cartels and the war thats going on on the other side of our border. The administration has tried to adopt new reporting requirements for gun dealers in that area, but that effort has really been sidetracked because of this emerging scandal that has come about, the fast and Furious Scandal about a botched gun sting that allowed guns to go to these mexican cartels under the watch of the atf but then atf lost track of these guns. I think as long as that issue is going on, i think its a growing scandal. I think its going to be a much bigger scandal in the next six months than it was in the past six months. I dont think theres much that can done in that realm. But obviously weve been trying to close the border, keeping dru drugs from coming in. We might need to think about whats going out too and limiting the ability for people to export guns to mexico. Next question. I have two questions. You can choose to answer either one. One, how easy is it to buy a gun in d. C. Two, can you contrast our gun restrictions to places like britain where they just had a series of looting . In the District Of Columbia its still very difficult to buy a firearm. The District Of Columbia after the heller case was decided didnt exactly throw up its arms and say okay well have liberal gun laws. They passed a series of very burdensome regulations that are currently winding their way through the Supreme Court and well see what happens with those particular provisions. So, its difficult in the District Of Columbia to get your hands lawfully on a firearm. I will say this, washington, d. C. Banned hand guns in 1976. Ten years later when i lived in washington, d. C. , it was known as the murder capital of the United States. Even banning guns didnt stop guns from finding their way into the wrong hands in washington, d. C. So, today you can probably get a gun easily in washington, d. C. If youre willing to buy one illegally. Legally, its more difficult. With regards to great britain, they got their theyve had restrictive licensing and Registration Requirements since the 1920s. And as a result theyve got very few firearms in great britain. Theres probably plenty of underground firearms as well but its difficult to own a firearm. The difference is i think they got their hands on their gun problem, if you will, in the 1920s when there was only a couple hundred thousand guns there. Theres 280 million guns in america. Thats almost one per person and it is more than one per adult. I think the idea we could get rid of all those guns is a to foolish idea. We tried to outlaw alcohol. It was a terrible disaster. We tried to outlaw drugs with the controlled substances act and the war on drugs. I feel its been a terrible disaster and just leads to criminal zags of activity that people are going to continue to engage in and the creation of a huge underground black market thats fed by criminal gangs. We should not try to get rid of all those guns. It would be a huge mistake in the same way that getting rid of alcohol and drugs would be. Yes . I also have two questions. One, can you talk a little bit about the disconnect. There are surveys that show the rank and file of the nra is a lot less stringent than the leadership of the nra. And second, it seems like a lot of the activity in this area right now is a lot of the big city mayors like mayor bloomberg and former mayor daily in chicago. Can you talk about that a little bit . Sure. The disconnect between the nra and its members, you know, it is longstanding and wellrecognized that if you poll gun owners and you poll nra members in particular, youll find much higher support for things like improving background checks, closing what they call the terrorist loophole, also maybe you hear a lot about the gun show loophole. I think thats not a good term. Its not accurate. Theres no loophole for gun shows. What there is is gun shows have to operate under the same rules as everywhere else that sells guns where guns are sold and it turns out that if youre not a federally licensed dealer regularly in the business of selling guns you dont have to conduct a background check. So, if you dont want to have a background check you might go to a gun show. But you can go to other places through classified ads and meet someone at a gun range and buy their gun. Theres other ways to do it. So, its not really a gun show loophole. Theres a majority of nra members that support closing that loophole. Why that difference is i think a lot of people in the nra do support gun control but the nra leadership doesnt see a lot to gain by supporting gun control. And in fact when members of the quote unquote gun lobby have supported gun control measures, theyve often found themselves losing a lot of business by the most diehard gun rights advocates and gun enthusiasts who buy a lot of guns. Im hopeful that if the right to bear arms by the Supreme Court is protected and that basic right is not challenged and gun owners become more convinced that their rights are secure that the nra leadership and the leadership of other gun rights organizations will also become less worried about the slippery slope towards total disarmament. And you had a second question about big city mayors. Well, the gun problem in america is predominantly a suicide problem. Half the gun deaths in america, a little over half are suicides. Of the homicides, half of those are gang. We have gangs that use guns too often. And thats where the gun violence that really affects urban cities, urban areas much more so than rural places, why those mayors want gun control. They want to be able to make their streets safer. Yes . Mark twain famously said a lad that couldnt hit a barn at 50 bases with a gatlin gun can pick up an unloaded gasket from over the fireplace and bag his grandmother every time. What are the statistics for accidental shootings with gun holders . I mean, are they much more likely to injure a friend or Family Member than someone breaking into their homes . Whats the story . Yeah, you know, for all the prominence that accidental shootings get in the literature and in the media, turns out to be a very small fraction of gun deaths every year. Obviously we know that this does happen. We read stories about, you know, some child who finds a gun that his parents left on their bedroom nightstand and shoots a friend with it. Accidental shootings do happen. I dont think that given the small number of incidents that this is something that is of primary or predominant concern when theres so much gang killing and suicide that might be better worth more worth our attention. You know, we have far more people die every year in swimming pools than in gun accidents. I hope more people are swimming in their swimming pools on hot austin days like today than they are playing with their guns at home. But nonetheless, gun accidents are overemphasized in terms of their importance. And the real issue is recidivist criminals. And i would like to ask a question about the heller case and aftermath. Youve written that the aftermath of the heller case has not been exactly what the nra and gun rights supporters had expected. Can you explain why that is . Well, the Supreme Court in the heller case defied both the extremes in the gun debate. Although gun rights advocates were exstoling the decision when it was decided and gun control supporters were bemoaning the decision when it was decided, it has not spelled the end of gun control in america. And i think while theres a right to have a firearm for selfdefense, there still is room for good Public Safety laws that regulate without banning guns. And since heller was decided there have been about a little more than 300 federal Court Decisions on the constitutionality of any number of gun control laws since 2008. The courts have upheld almost all of the laws, on. Only a tiny fraction of the laws have been invalidated. And i think its likely to continue to be the case. The courts will strike down outliers, really unusual and overly aggressive gun control laws like washington, d. C. Had, the only city in the entire nation that barred the use of firearm for selfdefense. And well continue to strike down some outliers. And as long as gun control supporters keep supporting silly and ineffective laws youre going to have these. There was just a case out of chicago where chicago had hand gun ban struck down after the heller case. Chicago said you can have a hand gun as long as its registered. To register you have to do an hour of training on a gun range and another provision of the law outlaws any operation of a gun range in the city of chicago. Come on, youre serious . So, that law was struck down as it should have been struck down. Its a silly and ineffective law thats really designed to deny people the right to have a firearm for selfdefense. So, i think well see those kinds of laws struck down. But were not going to see a strike down of course striking down background checks. Were not going to see courts striking down restrictions on access to machine guns and our most dangerous weapons. And were not going to see the Supreme Court saying felons or domestic abusers can have access to guns. I want to say thank you to adam winkler. This has been one of the most detailed and balanced discussions of guns ive heard in recent years. Thank you all of you for coming. Tonight on American History tv beginning at 8 00 eastern, a look at why june is lgbtq pride month. Six day of protests began on june 28, 1969 after a raid on a Greenwich Village gay club in new york city. It proved to be a key turning point in the gay rights movement. A document history joined us to mark the 50th anniversary of the uprising. Watch American History tv tonight and over the weekend on cspan3. American history tv on cspan3, exploring the people and events that tell the american story every weekend. Coming up this weekend, saturday at 6 00 p. M. Eastern on the civil war, the 1863 richmond bread riots where hundreds of poor and working class women protest inflation and the scarcity of food. And sunday at 4 00 p. M. Eastern, four films from the 1940s and 50s profiling the auto, dairy, restaurant, and Airline Industries negatively affected today by the coronavirus pandemic. And at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on the presidency, the Nixon Administration government reforms, and new era of selfgovernment. Watch American History tv this weekend on cspan3. 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