Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the texas book festival. I am rick dunham, the washington brew yo chief of the houston chronicle, and the creator of the texas on the potomac Political Blog on crime. Com and mysanantonio. Com. And ive been highjacked to perry president ial because some governor is running for president right now. In my extracurricular life i am the president of the National Press clubs Journalism Institute of which the crown jewel is the National Journalism library. Libraries are what the book festival is about. Raises money for Public Libraries in texas and for literacy programs. All of the books you buy benefit the libraries of the state of texas. I highly recommend you buy gunfight. Our author will sign books after our program in the book signing tent up congress avenue. I have been asked by the folks at cspan to ask you to turn off our silence your cell phones. Weve had some problems earlier today. 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 wide ranging scholarship has touched on a diverse array of topics including the right to bear arms, corporate political speech rights, Campaign Finance law, and affirmative action and Judicial Independence and a frequent contributor to the daily beast and the Huffington Post and his work cited in Numerous Supreme Court decisions and his 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 six volume encyclopedia of the american constitution. Gunfight has received outstanding reviews and 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. Gunfight weaves together the dramatic what one viewer called grishamlike legal drama behind a landmark Supreme Court case, the first Supreme Court case to clearly and unambiguously hold that Second Amendment protects an individuals right to own 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. Our efforts to balance those two things have shaped america in really fascinating and unexpected ways. 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. The book itself centers on a Supreme Court case probably everyone here knows about, District Of Columbia versus heller. Can you talk about what the facts were in that case and why the case is so important . Well, although 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 that 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 Second Amendment protects an individuals rights to own guns for personal protection but the first time that courts struck down a law that a gun control law for violating the Second Amendment. The law struck down was a law in washington, d. C. It was a ban on handguns, but also the ban on the use of long guns for anything but Recreational Purposes. You could own a rifle or a shotgun, but you could only it had to be locked or disassembled and only unlock it or assemble it for Recreational Purposes like hunting or shooting, target shooting. A d. C. Court 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. You could take your gun and maybe bang someone over the head with it, but you werent allowed to shoot someone if they were threatening your life. 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 lawyers and the lawsuit from the getgo and did everything they could to stop the case from ever going to the Supreme Court. Why was that . Thats counterintuitive and fascinating. Why would the nra have not wanted this case to go all the way . Well, the nra stated reason to the lawyers involved in the case was that they were afraid of losing. They didnt want their view of the Second Amendment rejected by the United StatesSupreme Court, especially this Supreme Court which has a majority of republican appointees, its a conservative court. They didnt want the 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 government is coming to get your guns. The Supreme Court said the government cant come to get your guns, what would that do to the nra crisisdriven fundraising. Whatever the reason, its clear that nra fought tooth and nail to keep this case from 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 you said on the definitive meaning of the Second Amendment. If the Supreme Court never ruled on it and its been more than two centuries 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 about whether it protects a right of individuals to own guns for personal protection or a collective right of state militias to organize and to form without federal interference. What i found in doing my research for gunfight was that the right to bear arms was one of our oldest, most established Constitutional Rights regardless of the Second Amendment. Every state has its own constitution and protects the right to bear arms in its state constitution. Clearly a right not associated with militia service. Some of the state provisions go back to the original founding an many came in the early and mid 1800s as states joined the union and added provisions into their constitutions. In addition what i found in research for my book whatever you think about the Second Amendment, its pretty clear that 14th amendment to the constitution which was one of the provisions adopted after the civil war to guarantee the freed men their equal rights, the 14th amendment was clearly designed to protect the freed men to have guns. After the civil war racist whites in the south were trying to take away blacks the freed mens right to have protection and the framers of the 14th amendment said often that one of the purposes of the 14th amendment was to protect the freed mans right to bear arms. Again, you have all these historical discussions over American History on 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 . The Founding Fathers very firmly believed in civilian ownership of firearms. They didnt believe in a Standing Army. Therapy afraid a Standing Army would be used corruptly by the president or whoever was governing to run over the liberties of the people and thought that a guarantee of democratic liberty was in an armed populace. They believed in the citizens militia, when called out to serve you would run home, grab your gun and be freed to fight in an instant. Hence the minutemen of revolutionary fame. At the same time 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 of Public Safety and might join up with their slaved brethren and revolt against the masters. They were willing to disarm law abiding white people, namely loyalists. Were not talking about traitors, people fighting for the british, what historians estimate were about 40 of the american population, opposed to the revolution, thought it was a bad idea taking on the powerful country in the world, Great Britain, and if you did not wear an oath of loyalty to the revolution you would be forcibly disarmed. They had numerous other kinds of restrictions on gun owners that came in the form of militia laws. They declared any male who is a free male between 18 and 45 was a member of the militia and had to go outfit themselves with their own private firearm. It was their own version of the obamas health care individual pan date. Only the framers didnt require you to buy insurance, they required you to go out and buy a gun. Lets 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 curbs. We think today of the south as a bastion of support of 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. Those laws were designed to discourage white men from getting into duels, honor duels, which were common place in the early 1800s and lawmakers sought to stop that. Theres been gun control throughout American History. Till the story in the book about the wild west. The wild west had some of the most restrictive gun control laws in the nation. Everyone out in the wilderness had guns. So much so that stagecoat drivers would ride with someone at great expense next to them with a shotgun in their hands. The kids say im riding shotgun when i get in the front seat. When you came into a town where the civilized folks lived, you had to check your guns the way you would check your coat at a restaurant in winter. By that i mean not a cold restaurant in a winter in austin where its 90 degrees today. But maybe up on the east coast. Where did you check your weapons . Yeah. 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 in the book of dodge city taken during the height of the wild west period, 1870s and 1880s, a picture of dodge city and looks like you would expect dodge city to look in the height of the wild west. Dusty road, brick and clapboard buildings, horse tie in front of the saloon. The surprising thing is what lies in the middle of the street is a big billboard, the carrying of firearms strictly prohibited. You came into a wild west town you were not allowed to be a gunslinger with a gun on each hip and rifle 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 in to town. What we know horse thieves were hanged. Did people steal each others pistols or was it like an umbrella, you picked up your own umbrella as you left town . Im sure there was plenty of thievery in the wild west with guns too. You would get them and you would give them to the Law Enforcement officer. There was research, i didnt put the picture in there, but i found a photograph from a bar in juneau, alaska, that had a handgun checked by wyatt earp and had to leave town before the Sheriffs Office opened again and the sheriff to this day has the gun that he checked and was not able to collect. Why do you think our concepts of the wild west, the gun slingers, are so wrong . What is 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 corral, a famous shootout with wyatt earp where three died and four wounded and obviously thats been memorialized in movies and film ever since. Our image of the wild west is quite wrong in fundamental ways and 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 with more civilized people and attract businessmen and investors and you wanted to attract good families to come and create stability in your town. Small towns today still want those same things. Thats why they enacted gun control laws so 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 businesses to serve them. If you go to tombstone, arizona, today you can see a reenactment of the corral where three people died because it was so extraordinary at the time. It wasnt commonplace to have a shootout. Historians have gone back and figured out if these towns like tombstone and dodge city they averaged less than two murders a year. Gun fights were daily events. They were annual events. Its hard to have a discussion of guns, gun rights and gun control without talking about the nra. In the past week, the nra has been in the news because herman cain used to be president of the nra, thats the National Restaurant association, and in texas when you say nra, its only the National Rifle association. Can you give a historical background on the nra and gun control and its creation . I read that it was once a supporter of gun control. Can you explain that . The nra today is known for being a very rarely compromising opponent of gun control, but it wasnt always this way. The organization was founded after the civil war by two Union Soldiers who were convinced poor union marksmanship is why the war lasted so long and wanted to improve training. In the 20s and 30s the nra drafted and endorsed gun control laws, restrictive laws, requiring anyone who wanted to carry a concealed weapon to have a license and only allowing the licenses to go to people who were suitable people with a proper reason for carrying their firearms. In fact, in the 19 i did research and found in 1934 when the federal Government Congress passed the first gun control law which outlawed gangster didnt outlaw but restricted access to machine guns and sawed off shot guns the president at the time, carl frederick, was asked to testify about it and asked specifically, did the Second Amendment have any relevance to the National Firearms act and his answer from the perspective of today is remarkable, he said i have not given it any study from that point of view. The head of the nra never thought about whether the most far reaching federal law to date was impacted by the Second Amendment. All that changed in the late 1960s, early 1970s when the nra underwent a radical transformation and become a politically active and hardline let me ask why . 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 smart what were the factors that led the nra to pivot on the issue of gun controls . Youre 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. The law required various kinds of licensing for gun dealers, banned the importation of certain kinds of cheap firearms associated with urban youth crime and what not, but that law really sparked and other laws of that era really sparked a movement of people who were really opposed to growing gun control. The head of the nra in the 1970s who endorsed the gun control act, not all of its provisions but endorsed the act overall and the american riflemen, the signature publication, maxwell rich devised a plan and said i want to retreat from political activity, move the nras headquarters out of washington and move it to Colorado Springs where we can focus on outdoorsmen activities and hunting and recreational shooting but this angered a group of dissidents in the nra membership and in the nra organization who thought guns werent primarily about hunting but were about personal protection in an era of rising crime rates. This group of dissidents led by Harlan Carter led a dramatic middle of the night coup of the organization. They went to the annual Membership Meeting in 1977 and orchestrated a well thought out, carefully devised plan to oust the entire leadership of the nra and replace them with the new dissident hardliners. When they took office they recommitted to political activity and made the Second Amendment really the heart and soul of the nra. When did moses himself, Charlton Heston, become involved . Yeah. Well Charlton Heston became one of the great spokesman for the nra. The famous picture from my cold dead hands. One of the things i found not going to directly answer your question, but Charlton Heston wasnt the first to say from my cold dead hands. What i found in researching gunfight among black after the civil war the same attitude was very prevalent. You will only take my gun from my cold dead hands. Before the civil war black were always disarmed and never allowed to own guns. During the civil war for the first time southern black get their hands on guns. Some serve in the union army and the army cant afford to pay its soldiers so it allows the soldiers to take their guns home with them and they will deduct how much the cost from the back wages that union army owes them. 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 and so they took to gathering in big groups, going out at night in costume and disguise, large numbers, the reason they were in large numbers because the africanamericans had guns and they wanted to out number the africanamericans. Africanamericans at that time refused to give up their guns and fought to keep their firearms. Also sort of sharing Charlton Hestons view from my cold, dead hands. Unfortunately for some they found their guns were taken from cold, dead hands. Your book flashes forward 100 years from that to the turmoil of the 1960s and makes to me a surprising connection between the black panthers and the rise of a modern gun rights movement. Can you explain that a little bit . Well, 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 back panthers go to the California State Capitol in sacramento with loaded rifles, shot guns 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. The black panthers werent there to do violence. They were there as a political protest as california was considering the adoption of new gun control laws. Laws that were designed to disarm the black panthers who were roaming around oakland with their guns openly displayed. That law that law the 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 if america today. That governor would go on to become president of the United States, ronald reagan. Reagan was a big endorser of this gun control law. 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 race riots in American History in detroit and newark. These laws 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 government was coming to get their guns next. 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 . I think the major push for gun control in the 1960s especially and the early 1970s was reflection in part of a Great Society philosophy, 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 a lot of people who believe very strongly in their political agenda and support that agenda. The reason why 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 you will be successful. So much so maybe that Current Administration in washington wishes to enact more gun control laws, but they received an f rating from the brady center, the nations leading Gun Control Group after two years, because they had only loosened gun control laws in the first two years. I think its become one of those issues that, especially for democrats, they just dont want to touch that issue because they see it as a political loser. Looking at the debate today then, youve taken us from the American Revolution to 2011. What do you think is wrong with the debates were having today over gun rights and how 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, its been dominated by extremists on both sides of the aisle. We often think of gun right supporters being extreme in their opposition to gun control, unwilling to support gun laws because they think even if this might be a good law its going to lead to ultimately down the slippery slope towards civilian disarmament. 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 and ban handguns and make other guns not useful for selfdefense, and even after that became obvious was an unrealistic agenda, would support often ineffective and sometimes frankly silly laws that really couldnt hope to reduce gun crime. What im hopeful and argue in the book 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 is 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. Im hopeful that maybe this heller case can be the opening that helps to break that political stalemate over guns. We want to hear from the audience. Anyone who is here has a question, please go to the microphone over here and well open up the floor. You got it. Sort of a tactical question. Justices kagan and sotomayor have pretty explicitly said they think not only was heller wrongly decided but given the opportunity they will overturn it. Do you think that it is still in flux . I guess all constitutional law is. Do you see it as something that will be enduring or might quickly and unusually go by the wayside . You know, its very hard to say whats going to happen in the short term. Im i dont think it will be overturned. You never know what happens with the judicial appointments. Heller was a 54 decision. There was a subsequent decision in 2010 that said the Second Amendment applied equally to the state and local governments. Heller only dealt with the federal government and the District Of Columbia. That case was 54. Any kind of judicial appointment might change that. Im i dont think the democrats really have a big a lot it gape 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 right supporters on the democratic side are going to be very unlikely to support nominees that could change that vote from 54. 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. 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 going on on the other side of our border. The administration has tried to adopt some new reporting requirements for gun dealers in that area but that effort has 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 the guns. I think so long as that issue is going on, i think its a growing scandal and its going to be a much bigger scandal in the next six months than in the past six months. I dont think theres much that can be done in that realm. Obviously weve been trying to close the border keeping drugs from coming in. We might need to spend some time thinking about whats getting out too and limiting the ability of people to export guns to mexico. Next question. I have two questions. You can choose to answer either one. How easy is it to buy a gun in d. C. And two, can you contrast our gun restrictions to a place like britain where they just had a series of looting . Yeah. 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. 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. 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 for since the 1920s and as a result, theyve got very few firearms in Great Britain. Theres plenty of underground firearms as well, but its very 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 that we could get rid of all those guns is a foolish idea, it ignores the lessons and the history weve had from prohibition. We tried to outlaw alcohol and it was a terrible disaster and tried to outlaw drugs with the war on drugs. I dont know how you feel about it. I feel its been a disaster. It leads to criminalization of activity 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. 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 daly in chicago. Can you talk about that a little bit . Sure. The disconnect between the nra and its members, you know, it is long standing and well recognized that if you poll gun owners and nra members in particular you will 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. Gun shows have to operate under the same rules as everywhere else that guns are sold and if youre not a federally licensed dealer regularly in the business of selling guns you dont have to conduct a background check. If you dont want a background check you go to a gun show but you can go to other places and buy through classified ads or meet someone at a gun range and buy their gun, others ways to do it. Its not a gun show loophole but a lot of members, the majority of nra members, that would support closing that loophole and requiring a background check for every legal gun purchase in america. 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 of to gain by supporting gun control. In fact, when members of the gun 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 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 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. 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. Then of the homicides, half of those are gang or recidivist criminal related. We have a gun problem in america, its primarily a gang problem in america. 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 paces with a gatlin gun can pick up an unloaded musket from over the fire place and bag his grandmother every time. What are the statistics for accidental shootings within with gun holders . Are they much more likely to injure a friend or Family Member than someone breaking in to their homes . Whats the story . Yeah. You know, for all the prominence that accidental shootings get in the literature and media, it turns out to be a very small fraction of gun deaths every year. 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 night stand 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 or suicide that might be more worth our attention. Far more people die every year in swimming pools than gun accidents. I hope more people are swimming in their swimming pools on hot austin days like today than playing with their guns at home, but nonetheless, gun accidents are over emphasized in terms of their importance. The real issue is recidivist criminals. I would like to ask a question about the heller case and the aftermath. Youve written that the aftermath of the heller case has not been exactly what the nra and gun right supporters expected. Can you explain why that is . The Supreme Court in the heller case defied both extremes in the gun debate, although gun rights advocates were extolling the decision when it was decided and gun owners were bemoaning when it was decided. I think the gun opinion goes out of its way to make clear there is still room for good Public Safety laws that regulate without banning guns. Since heller was decided there have been a little more than 300 federal Court Decisions on the constitution constitutionality of any number of laws, and the courts held up most of the laws and only a tiny fraction of the laws have been invalidated, and thats likely to be the case, the courts will strike down outliers, unusual and overly aggressive gun controls like washington, d. C. Had, it was the only city in the entire nation that really barred the use of any firearm for self defense and will continue to strike down some outliers, and as long as gun control supporters keep supporting silly and ineffective laws, you will have these. Chicago had its handgun ban struck down after the heller case, and chicago said you can have a handgun if its registered and to register it, you have to have an hour of instruction on the gun range but in chicago gun ranges are illegal, so that was struck down and it was a silly law that was to deny the right to have a gun in self defense. We will not see the courts striking down background checks or restrictions with machine guns and felons or domestic abusers will not have access to guns. I want to say thank you to adam winkler. This has been one of the most detailed and to me balanced discussions of guns in recent years. Thank you to 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 days of protests began in 19 1969. Editor of the stonewall riots join us. Watch American History tv tonight and over the weekend on cspan 3. American history tv on cspan 3, 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 protests inflation and the scarcity of food. And four films from the 1940s and 50s profiling the auto, dairy and restaurant and Airline Industries negatively affected today by the coronavirus pandemic. And then the nixon administrations government reforms and a new era of self government. Exploring the american story. Watch American History tv this weekend on cspan 3. Cspan has unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the Supreme Court and Public Policy events. 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