His principal interest includes federal and state institutional law, first and Second Amendments and legal history. Joseph earned his ba degree magna cum laude from rice university, masters degree from cambridge. And agd degree from yale school. He knew both of the people we had last week, although he did not take any courses from them. Joseph helped the briefing for the Landmark Supreme Court district of columbia versus heller in 2008. The district of columbia fire arms control regulation act of 1975 required, among other things, that all firearms be kept unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock. It also restricted those owning restricted residence from owning handguns, accept those registered prior to the enactment of the law. In a 54 decision the Supreme Court said it protects an individuals right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia. And to use that arm for traditionally normal purposes such as selfdefense within a home. Unfortunately, joseph was on the wrong side of that decision. Our second speaker is erin murphy. She is a partner and litigator with washington, d. C. Law Firm Kirkland and ellis. She earned a ba degree from northwestern and a jd degree magna cum laude from georgetown. Georgetown University Law center. She has clerked for chief Justice John Roberts and argued for cases before the Supreme Court. In her first Supreme Court case, mccutcheon versus fec, the campaignfinance case brought by the Republican National committee challenging individual campaignfinance limits, erin won. She has also argued several cases before the federal appeals court. One she challenged sunnyvale california and the Second Amendment challenge. In this case the ninth u. S. Circuit court of appeals upheld the city of sunnyvales law constricting the highcapacity gun magazines. A rejected arguments of groups such as the National Rifle association which contended the restrictions are unconstitutional and undermined the owners right to protect their homes, as was established in the 2008 heller versus d. C. Case. That case has now been usurped from California Law but it still has not been fully decided. Our moderator today is john garvey. John garvey. John is an professor at the Franklin Pierce school of law at the university of New Hampshire. He earned an a. B. From harvard and a jd from suffolk university. He is also a mediator and arbitrator and was selected by his peer as mediator of the year in 2014 and 2017. John is the founding director of the nationally acclaimed Daniel Webster scholar honors program. A collaboration between the unh school of law, the New HampshireSupreme Court and the New Hampshire bar association. Students are accepted into this Program Prior to their second year of law and discover firsthand what it takes to succeed in todays legal marketplace. They hone their skills in both simulated and real settings, counseling clients, working with practicing lawyers, taking depositions, appearing before judges, etc. Students pass a variant of a New Hampshire bar exam during her stash during their last two during their last two years, and are sworn in the day before graduation. Let me ask that our speakers and moderators come on stage. [applause] john good morning. Its so nice to see all of you here for this debate. As you know we have two very distinguished lawyers who participate at the highest levels when it comes to interpreting the Second Amendment. They both recently filed briefs as you heard with the Supreme Court in a case that raises this very topic. Today topic. Today they are going to debate the issue of how courts should go about interpreting the Second Amendment with respect to the individual right to keep and bear arms. A right which was confirmed by the Supreme Court as recently as 2008. This will be a constitutional debate, rather than a Public Policy debate. The socalled gun debate has become so prominent in the United States that many people probably assume the issue has been raging since the birth of our nation. In fact until the 1960s the , Second Amendment was barely discussed in courts at all. Let me give you a brief overview to sort of set the tone for what they are going to be speaking about today. In the 1960s, bobby seale and we knew in he we newton hugh newton started the black panthers in oakland, california. He we newton had some Legal Training and took the position that the Second Amendment gave individuals the right to bear arms in public which they and their fellow black panthers began to do. This created a stir, to say the least. And shortly thereafter the California Legislature passed a law restricting the possession and use of weapons in public places. Federal restrictions and new laws in other states soon followed. This energized some gunowners and libertarians, who felt the government was infringing on their Constitutional Rights. As you know the nra became quite vocal, particularly since the 1970s. When the gun debate began, the major debate was whether the Second Amendment is limited to militia related people, arms, and activities, or whether, as the black cat theirs and the nra claimed, it includes an individual right to keep and bear arms. Disconnected from any actual or potential service in an organized militia. This question was answered by the Supreme Court in 2008 in the case you heard referred to call the district of columbia versus heller. The Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment does include an individual right, at least to the extent of keeping and using handguns in the home. So the Second Amendment is not limited to the organized militia. But heller also makes it clear that gun control is not categorically unconstitutional. So another thing we know is that the right to keep and bear arms, like all other things, like all of the rights, is subject to regulation. Having said there is an individual right, Justice Scalias majority opinion went on to say, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, were laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions on the commercial sale of arms. With the individual rights reading resolved, the question for the Second Amendment now is now, as for most Constitutional Rights, is what kind of regulations are permissible . Over the last 10 years in more than a thousand cases that has been the question that courts have struggled to answer. Until recently, the Supreme Court has stayed out of that debate. Though as we will talk about, the justices have agreed to hear a new york case that has the potential to change everything. That is the case most recently which our speakers have filed briefs in. Erin murphy has counseled for the petitioners in that case. R has filed a friend of the court brief in support of the other side. Before we get into the details, i would like to start with a broader question for both erin and joseph. The Supreme Court has said that the Second Amendment includes an individual right, but it is not unqualified and some restrictions are permissible. Given that, how should courts determine which gun regulations are constitutional . Erin . Erin good morning and thank you for having me here. Its great to be in missouri. I have not been up to this part of the country before it. Given the position that i will be taken in discussing these issues, it is a delight to be in a state that continues to respect and protect Second Amendment rights. That is something we are always looking for in all these cases and all of the states where i litigate. As john mentioned, ive been involved in many cases. Many of the cases we will talk about have litigated these cases, typically on the side, always on the side actually of advocating in favor of Second Amendment rights and challenging restrictions that have been passed by states, municipalities, and in a few cases, the United States. It has been a really interesting and challenging area to litigate over the past 10 years because we have seen so many jurisdictions that continue to pass extremely aggressive laws that really do not seem consistent with the notion that the Supreme Court recognized the Second Amendment is an individual fundamental constitutional right. That is right. That is not true of all jurisdictions in most states, well over 80 of the states, protect the right not just to possess a firearm in the home, but also to carry. Many states through licensing to carry a firearm. Many states through licensing regimes, known as shell issue licensing regimes, where basically any lawabiding citizen is going to be able to obtain a right to carry a firearm, so most states in the country have been protective and continue to be protective of the rights that the Second Amendment protects. Notwithstanding the facts that it has been 10 years that the Supreme Court said that this is in fact an individual right, we continue to see a number of jurisdictions, and unfortunately jurisdictions that have an extremely large population, that large portion of the country. Even though there is a smaller number of jurisdictions that have responded to heller by, instead of ensuring protection of Second Amendment rights, actually passing ever increasing ever increasingly more aggressive and constraining restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms. One great example of this is the city of chicago. If you go back to the heller case it self, heller was about whether you can have a ban on the possession of handguns. The Supreme Court held that the district of columbias ban on possession of handguns was unconstitutional. Chicago had in place a nearly identical band on the possession of handguns. Instead of acknowledging that under heller its ban was clearly now unconstitutional, chicago continued to defend it. Chicago continued to defend it by arguing that the Second Amendment does not apply at all to states and municipalities. Now pretty much every other individual constitutional right, whether actually enumerated in the bill of rights or recognized by the courts through other doctrines like due process, has been interpreted for decades to apply, not just to the federal government, but to states and municipalities. Yet chicago and a few other jurisdictions refused to acknowledge that they were even bound at all by the Supreme Courts decision in heller, and that the Second Amendment has any impacts on states and municipalities. That led the Supreme Court to its second decision, which is nearly 10 decades old in this area, the mcdonnell versus city of chicago case, and which the court rejected that position and said, no, this is an individual fundamental right and states and municipalities must respect it the same way that the federal government was. Even then, chicago would not give up. Chicago responded to that decision within a few days by passing an extremely aggressive system of licensing regime for possessing a firearm. Under that regime, chicago said that in order to get a license to possess a firearm, you had to have had an hour of training at a firing range. Ok, so far, so good, we all agree. Its absolutely important to understand how to use a firearm if you are going to possess one. At the same time, chicago simultaneously prohibited firing ranges within the city of chicago, thereby making it illegal basically impossible for its own residents to actually obtain what chicago had said they needed to have in order to qualify under chicago law, to have a firearm. That was struck down. The city of chicago nonetheless continued to have aggressive laws. It was one of the first jurisdictions to have a complete absolute prohibition on carrying a firearm. Which is held constitutional. And it continues to have extreme aggressions today. Including being among the jurisdictions that imposes a special discriminatory tax on firearms. On obtaining a firearm. The Supreme Court has said for decades that you cannot impose special taxes on the exercise of a constitutional right. Sure, if you have just a general tax that applies to everything and incidentally reaches a constitutional right, then the tax can apply thereto. But the Supreme Court has long made clear when it comes to the exercise of First Amendment rights, speech, the exercise of freedom of religion, all these other areas, the court says you cannot have a special tax that singles out the exercise of the Constitutional Rights. That is trying to deter people from exercising rights they possess. Yet, chicago and other jurisdictions have exactly that imposeal taxes that they pretty much for the acknowledge purpose for trying to deter people from exercising a right that the Supreme Court has held the constitution protects. We have seen thing from other jurisdictions, aggressive laws from places like san francisco, los angeles, the district of columbia, new york and new york city have been particularly aggressive. Its a new york city restriction has led to the Supreme Court deciding to hear a case this fall that will mark the first case in about 10 years that the Supreme Court has heard in this area. New york city has a restriction. They have a licensing regime that says that in order to possess a firearm within your own home, you have to obtain a license. A licensed known as a premises license. As a condition on that license, it says you cannot remove the firearm from your home to take it anywhere except to an authorized shooting range. Even then, you have to transport it unloaded and locked up in a container, locked separate from its ammunition. But the catch beyond even that is, new york city defines authorized to include only shooting ranges within the boundaries of new york city itself. There are a grand total of seven shooting ranges in the entire city of new york. A city of more than 8 million people. This results in a restriction that you cannot remove a handgun from the limits of the city of new york at all. This is an outlier restriction that we have to this point found that no other jurisdiction in the entire country, city or state that has. There is no other state that says you cannot remove your firearm on the limits of this city at all, even to just take it next door to a shooting range that maybe 15 minutes away, if you are talking about someone who lives at the edge of new york city and wants to go into new jersey or out to long island. These are the kinds of restrictions we continue to see from jurisdictions that really do not want to accept the proposition that this is a fundamental individual right. And instead continue to treat the right to keep and bear arms as if it were really more of a privilege that people are allowed to exercise only at the grace of the state and with the states permission and with all of the constraints that the state wants to put on it. Now, many of these restrictions have been challenged in courts. Normally, when you are dealing with the realm of restrictions on an exercise of Constitutional Rights, the basic rule is, those restrictions are present doubly unconstitutional. Are presumptively unconstitutional. Yes, it is not the case that you cannot regulate Constitutional Rights at all. You can have laws that passed muster, that impede in some respects on First Amendment rights and other rights. But generally when you go to the courts, the courts treat those laws as presumptively unconstitutional and its the governments burden to explain how they can be consistent with an do not unduly restrict the exercise of Constitutional Rights. In this realm, what we continue to see from the lower courts is that the lower courts are not particularly interested in figuring out what the right protects. They are instead really fixated on that language that was mentioned at the outset here from heller that said, not every law is unconstitutional in this area. And essentially what they do is treat that as the holding of heller. Its as if instead of holding that heller protects a co