The Second Amendment’s right “to keep and bear arms” has been among the most controversial rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Did the Founders intend to safeguard an individual right or a collective right? What kinds of gun restrictions, if any, are consistent with the Founders’ aims? How exactly has gun control in the United States affected violent crime rates? The Supreme Court’s review of the Washington, D.C., handgun ban, along with recent shootings on school campuses and elsewhere, make these questions more timely than ever. Stephen P. Halbrook provides the fullest account yet of the Founders’ views in his new book, The Founders’ Second Amendment. Criminologist and attorney Don B. Kates, Jr., author of Armed: New Perspectives on Gun Control, will discuss what effects gun control has on violent crime. Please join us as Halbrook and Kates examine the Second Amendment, then and now.

Last year, a federal appeals court overturned the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns. Now the U.S. Supreme Court will decide the case after nearly seventy years of silence on the Second Amendment. Observers expect the Court to finally settle the legal question of whether the constitutional “right of the people to keep and bear arms” is an individual right held by all, or a “collective right” of the state governments to maintain militias. What did the Founders intend when they drafted the Second Amendment? Please join us as constitutional legal scholar and Independent Institute Research Fellow Stephen P. Halbrook and George Mason University Law School legal historian Joyce Lee Malcolm examine these issues. Halbrook’s new book, The Founders’ Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms, is the fullest account yet of the Founders’ aims. Malcolm’s To Keep and Bear Arms traces that right to English law and traditions and provides a comprehensive history of the transmission of that right to the American colonies. Independent Institute President David J. Theroux will moderate.

Is it possible that the U.S. government’s response to the 9/11 attacks has served al-Qaeda interests? The “War on Terror” has inflamed many in the Islamic world who had previously been unsympathetic to violent jihad. Despite the hype, U.S. law-enforcement officials have found little evidence of serious terrorist activities inside the country, compelling them to escalate their use of prosecution and entrapment to justify their enormous budgets. Sorting out the real effects of the “War on Terror” is an urgent challenge. Please join us as political scientist Ian S. Lustick, national security expert Ivan Eland, and journalist and historian Gareth Porter explain how America’s enemies have used our own strength against us. Copies of the new policy report, Our Own Strength Against Us, by Ian S. Lustick, will be available.
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Did the United States test an anti-satellite weapon when it “shot down” an out-of-control spy satellite earlier this month? Or was it a precautionary measure to protect people on the ground who might have been hit with a fuel tank filled with a poisonous gas? If the 1967 space treaty—which designated space as a peaceful place—has become outdated, how can the U.S. ensure the safety of its assets without leading the charge toward a new cold war? Please join us for a policy forum featuring Dr. Peter Hays, Associate Director, Eisenhower Center for Space and Defense Studies; Theresa Hitchens, Director of the Center for Defense Information; Jeff Kueter, President of the George C. Marshall Institute; and Mike Moore, author of Twilight War: The Folly of U.S. Space Dominance. The forum will be moderated by Ivan Eland, Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute.