In today’s episode, I’m joined by Stephen Halbrook, Ph.D., Constitutional Attorney and leading Second Amendment scholar, to unpack the history, legal battles, and misconceptions surrounding America’s most popular rifle: the AR-15. We discuss why the AR-15 is protected under the Constitution, the Supreme Court cases shaping gun rights, and how modern gun control laws threaten individual liberty. Learn the truth about America’s rifle, the Second Amendment, and what’s at stake for your freedom.
In today’s episode, I’m joined by Stephen Halbrook, Ph.D., Constitutional Attorney and leading Second Amendment scholar, to unpack the history, legal battles, and misconceptions surrounding America’s most popular rifle: the AR-15. We discuss why the AR-15 is protected under the Constitution, the Supreme Court cases shaping gun rights, and how modern gun control laws threaten individual liberty. Learn the truth about America’s rifle, the Second Amendment, and what’s at stake for your freedom.
Website: https://stephenhalbrook.com/
Stephen Halbrook (00:00):
Colorado with these training requirements that they are having right now. Do you think that's actually constitutional?
Narrator (00:07):
I think it's way over the top. I mean, they don't make you have training to vote. They don't make you have training to give speeches. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to buy and to possess and to carry guns.
Jenny Beth Martin (00:23):
Keeping Our Republic is on the line and it requires Patriots with great passion, dedication, and eternal vigilance to preserve our freedoms. Jenny Beth Martin is the co-founder of Tea Party Patriots. She's an author of filmmaker and one of time magazine's most influential people in the world. But the title she's most proud of is Mom to Her Boy, girl Twins. She has been at the forefront fighting to protect America's core principles for more than a decade. Welcome to the Jenny Beth Show.
Stephen Halbrook (00:55):
Today we're joined by Steven Halbrook, who is an attorney and an author. He has represented many different clients including the National Rifle Association. He's been before the United States Supreme Court three times and won all three cases, and he has a new book out called America's Rifle, the case for the AR 15. I'm really excited to have Steven with us today. Thank you so much for joining us today, Steven.
Narrator (01:19):
Glad to be on the show. Jeanine Beth, thank you.
Stephen Halbrook (01:23):
So you've got this new book out. Tell me a little bit about the book and then we can delve into it a bit more in the podcast. But what is the book about?
Narrator (01:32):
So once again, the title is America's Rifle, the case for the AR 15. It goes into the modern controversy about the most popular rifle actually in US History, the AR 15 and semi-automatic rifles, there's probably 20 to 30 or maybe even 40 million of 'em. The Hands of Americans, it's more popular than the F-150 Ford truck. But Americans have a Second Amendment right to keep in bare arms and it shall not be infringed according to the Second Amendment. And yet we have, I don't know, it was five states I think three years ago when the Supreme Court Brewing case came down. And after that I think there's about three more states that ban the AR 15 type rifle. And these are blatant infringements on the Second Amendment. So what the book does is to go through the history, how did we get here, the English background and heritage, our colonial history, and what led to the Second Amendment.
Narrator (02:39):
It was the fact that the British disarmed the colonists. They not only disarmed the militias at Lexington Concord unsuccessfully, they tried to do it, they didn't do it, but they also disarmed all of the people in Boston. Not many people know that after Lexington in Concord, we fought a revolution over this, right? So that's how it got embedded into the Constitution. So we go through other periods of time and there were no federal gun restrictions to speak of until the 20th century. And Congress at one time or another has gone further and further and infringement on Second Amendment rights. But in 1994, bill Clinton signed the so-called assault weapon ban at the federal level, which sought to ban many features on AR 15 type rifles. But that sunsetted that went away and it's never been replicated. Congress has refused to pass any such law again.
Narrator (03:40):
In fact, there were studies done showing that the law had no relation to crime in terms of reducing crime, but I suspect the Supreme Court's going to cover this topic. In fact, there were two cases that the Supreme Court just denied cert in. One of 'em was called Snoop versus Brown, and that has to do with Maryland SPAN on AR 15 type rifles. And the other case is tactical, I can't think of the name. It is Rhode Island's magazine ban a ban on magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. And so CERT was denied those cases, but Justice Kavanaugh made a statement when the Snoop case was denied that he expects the court to take a case of this type within the next term or two when he was a judge on the DC circuit, I litigated a case came to be known as Heller two DC had banned semi-automatic rifles of these types.
Narrator (04:47):
It was upheld by two judges. But then Judge Kavanaugh wrote a dissenting opinion saying that AR fifteens are protected by the Second Amendment. And so now he's on the court. And in this case that it was I think June the second when the court denied cert in the Maryland ban case Justices Kavanaugh and Alito dissented from that denial. And Justice Thomas even wrote a dissent from the denial talking about how basically the court needs to resolve that issue that this band that Marilyn has in the other usual suspect, states like California and New York, they ban 'em as well. And we need to come to terms with the fact that these are unconstitutional statutes that states have passed and the court needs to take up these cases.
Stephen Halbrook (05:42):
Explain to the non-attorneys in the audience exactly what is cert and if it has been denied, can it come up again in the same case or in a different case basically with the same grounds in the future? How does that work?
Narrator (05:57):
Well, if you think about it, there's only one Supreme Court and thousands of people knock at their door every year wanting their case to be heard. These cases, most of them have gone through a federal district court and then a federal court of appeals. And whoever loses in the Federal Court of Appeals knocks on the Supreme Court's door. There's no way they can take all these cases. And so they select cases, we think this is an important case that they should have taken, but if they didn't do it, then they can certainly take that issue up again. So what you do if you lose in the Court of Appeals, you file what's called a cert petition. And so when the court, if Supreme Court denies cert, it means they're not going to hear your case. It does not mean that they are ruling against you.
Narrator (06:45):
It is like just saying, whoa, we don't have time for that one. You can come again though, y'all come to see us when you come. It's like there'll be more petitions filed to have that issue resolved because it's boiling over in about eight states. I think the latest state to pass a very restrictive law on these kinds of rifles that say they call assault weapons, but they've never been used in any assault unless somebody uses it in one. It's just a pejorative term. But Colorado just passed one. It's not a total band, but you have to go through many, many hours of special training. And it is basically an obstruction normally to buy a rifle or a shotgun in any state just about you just go to the gun shop and you buy it. But in Colorado now, they made it very difficult to buy this kind of gun. But in the state of New York, you can go to prison for many years for mere possession of one. So it's an outlier in terms of most states don't have such a law, but it's like when you have a smaller number of states violating in a constitutional right, you can't just tell the citizens, well move if you don't like it. And so I think the court ought to take up this issue.
Stephen Halbrook (08:10):
I think that they should as well. And it becomes very confusing because it's not the same around the entire country. And of course states have the right to pass their own laws, but when it is so fundamentally contrary to what the Second Amendment says, it's difficult to understand how those laws are able to hold up
Narrator (08:32):
Sometimes. They've been on the books for many years. If you think about the District of Columbia banned handguns back in 1976, and it was not until 2008 in the case District of Columbia versus Heller that the Supreme Court took that issue on and validated the district of Columbia's law. It was a wonderful opinion by Justice Scalia. Before that, some court said that, well, the right of the people to keep and bear arms really just means that states can have militias. I mean, what a contrary to the text type of argument that was. But ever since the Heller decision by the Supreme Court, you've got a lot of resistance to the ruling on the Second Amendment that ruling and some other ones since then. And so it's
Stephen Halbrook (09:22):
So remind people what Heller is.
Narrator (09:24):
That's the DC handgun ban case. And the court said handguns are in common use by law abiding citizens for lawful purposes throughout the country and you can't ban guns that are in that category. So Heller and then we had a case called McDonald where the court held that the Second Amendment applies to the states. We had Bruin, which was the New York case that ind New York's law banning the carrying of handguns to get a handgun carry permit, you had to be a billionaire or a celebrity or to pay bribes. And so that's done away with now,
Stephen Halbrook (10:06):
But it's still very hard in New York, isn't it to carry to have a gun? Or is it easier now?
Narrator (10:14):
Well, it's easier to get the permit. So what New York did to try to get back at the Supreme Court was to say, okay, you can get a permit, but we're going to declare most places out of balance where nobody can carry a gun even with a permit. And so they've tried to make it more difficult. See, this is what happens if you have in some of these states where they hate the Second Amendment. Basically if the Supreme Court tells 'em one thing, they're going to try to go back and invalidate that and then the courts in their state will uphold it. And so unless these cases get to the Supreme Court, you're done for if you're a law abiding citizen,
Stephen Halbrook (10:58):
It's just rather maddening the way that that happens. And then on the other side of the spectrum, you have seats that are passing constitutional carry laws and don't require a permit at all. Correct?
Narrator (11:13):
That's right. And a few years ago it was just a few states that had that the originally Vermont was the only state nationwide that never had a ban on concealed carry. And then in the Antebellum period, you have a few southern states adopting those laws. But then when you get into the 20th century, most states ban, conceal carry and they made it hard to get a permit. But that's been done away with. And the majority of states, and I'm not sure what the statistic is, I think it could be 26, 28 states now that have constitutional carry, meaning that you can carry openly or concealed without a permit.
Stephen Halbrook (11:58):
Those sheets are really good. I've been in those sheets where I see people sometimes when I'm in a grocery store or in a gas station and they're carrying, and there are people who are carrying, and you cannot see it because it's concealed, but others who are carrying. And you can see the weapon right there. And I'm sure it makes some people uncomfortable, but when I see it, I'm like, oh, that's good. Because if anything happens in here, there are people who are ready to act and I feel safer because if you have to wait to call 9 1 1 for help to arrive, that could be the difference between life and death.
Narrator (12:40):
What is the old saying that when there's no seconds to spare, the police are 10 minutes away. And so people are becoming serious about taking protection into their own hands. We've got great law enforcement in this country in most places except in the big cities where the city people tell 'em to stand down. Like in LA they say, oh no, you can't go against the rioters. But people are realizing the police normally come after a crime's already been committed and there's no legal duty of the police to protect any particular person. So people were beginning to understand, and when you look at this day and age, what's been going on, if you want to go back to the 2020 riots and COVID, there's a lot of uncertainties and the election cycle, and now we're seeing the coming back of the riot season. And so I think people realize that you have freedom of choice. You don't have to get a gun, you have a choice not to do so, certainly, but you also have the choice to get one, and it's your responsibility to train with it and to learn the law. But once you do that, it makes it a safer society.
Stephen Halbrook (13:59):
It does because you can defend yourself against your fellow citizens and you also can ensure that the government is not amassing too much power and trampling on other rights. Correct?
Narrator (14:12):
That's right. I mean the purpose of the Second Amendment, the impetus for it was the British violations sending in the standing army and quartering among the people like in Boston and then basically acting like a tyrant. And so prevention of tyranny is one of the leading purposes of the Second Amendment, the ability to repel foreign invasion to defend yourself in individual self-defense situations like by some robber attacks you or in a situation like a riot, like in Kenosha, Wisconsin in 2020, Mr. Rittenhouse was an example. So there's various functions. Most of the time guns serve a recreational purpose and a hunting purpose, but when you really need protection, that's the ultimate protector.
Stephen Halbrook (15:17):
That is absolutely correct. Now Steven, you've been before the Supreme Court and argued before the Supreme Court three different times, correct?
Narrator (15:25):
That's right.
Stephen Halbrook (15:27):
What were those cases?
Narrator (15:30):
So the first case had to do with an issue under the National Firearms Act, and it had to do with what kinds of parts you can have for rifles and pistols. There was laws against so-called short barrel rifles, and in this case a project was offered by a fire manufacturer. Without going into the details, the Supreme Court held that it's not a restricted firearm under the National Firearms Act. The second case I did was called Prince versus Us. And it had to do with, if you remember, 1993, bill Clinton signed the so-called Brady Bill and it sought to constrict our law enforcement officers nationwide to act for the federal government to do background checks on handgun purchasers. What just so happened happens that your local sheriff is not employed by the federal government, and Congress sought to impose that duty on local sheriffs and local police, but they worked for their localities and for their states.
Narrator (16:32):
So the Supreme Court and a wonderful opinion by Justice Scalia held that the federal government cannot conscript the states to administer federal regulatory programs. And so the way it stands now, the law changed, and you have the FBI does background checks for firearm purchasers, those who buy guns from federally licensed dealers. We don't have any objection to that, but I was protecting basically the local law enforcement officers of the country. And then the third case I did was this Waco tragedy. You had the horrible standoff and then the burning of the so-called branch dividian facility in Waco, Texas. And the people who got out alive were charged with federal felonies. And what happened was the jury acquitted them of the major charges.
Narrator (17:34):
It was like the government was trying to blame them because they were still alive. And the case went to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court found that there was a right to jury trial over one of the specific issues. It was a gun issue. And so the court changed the sentences in the case. These individuals had gotten 40 years incarceration, and that went down to 15 years because of this violation of the right to jury trial. But I'll mention a couple of other cases. I was deeply involved in the Heller case in the Supreme Court. I represented a majority of members of Congress in an amicus brief, a friend of the court brief, and of course the court in that case said that DC's handgun ban was valid under the Second Amendment. And then also I was involved in the McDonald case once the District of Columbia law fell. There was also the Chicago and some of the other Chicago land jurisdictions that banned handguns. And so the court held that that's invalid under the Second Amendment, what they argued was the states, I'm sorry, Chicago argued that, well, the Second Amendment doesn't apply here. And so the Supreme Court said, Nope. Yes, it does 2010. And so that did away with those handgun vans.
Stephen Halbrook (19:07):
It's shocking to me when we see states doing this, and I don't know why it is shocking. I want to go back to what's happening in Colorado right now with the law. They've recently passed. But before we do that, what was it like to go before the Supreme Court and where did you go to law school? And when you were in law school, did you think you'd be going before the Supreme Court and that you'd win?
Narrator (19:33):
Well, long before law school, I was studying the Second Amendment, and once I went to Georgetown Law in Washington dc, once I got that degree, I was already interested in the Second Amendment doing research and writing. So before long, I started publishing Second Amendment books. If you look at my website, stephen hallbrook.com, you'll see several books on Second Amendment issues. And you never anticipate that the Supreme Court's going to take one of your cases, but they did. And it worked out very well because I litigated two of the three cases from the very beginning in the trial court. And so I was very familiar with all the issues. And so once I got the Supreme Court, I was certainly prepared. I knew more about these cases than the justices and the government lawyers, the women lawyers might've had more experience than I did. But I certainly knew the facts and the law involving these cases better. And so I found it very, I won't say easy, but better than some of the court of appeals cases argued because if you end up with hostile judges, you have a three judge panel. You might have three hostile judges, but with the Supreme Court, one of the cases I did was not to zero, but the other two were five four. So you had justices who were favorable and those who are unfavorable. So anyway, it worked out.
Stephen Halbrook (21:10):
Yeah, it worked out well. And I'm sure that that was probably, if you took a moment as you were walking into the Supreme Court with your first case, just it had to be a bit of an awe inspiring moment for you to think, wow, I'm actually going before the Supreme Court. And then you have to just set aside all of that and focus on the case at hand to make sure that you win.
Narrator (21:33):
And I had been to the court a number of times before hand, and so I felt like I knew the justices, I knew the kinds of questions they would ask. And back in the day, we don't have cassette tapes anymore, but I had cassette tapes of a lot of previous Supreme Court arguments on firearm law issues going back to the sixties. And so I thought I was pretty well prepared. It turned out for the best.
Stephen Halbrook (22:02):
Yeah, it sounds like it. And that's a smart way to prepare. Listening to all of those cases going back is so far that was very, very smart Colorado with these training requirements that they are having right now. Do you think that's actually constitutional?
Narrator (22:22):
I think it's way over the top. I mean, they don't make you have training to vote. They don't make you have training to give speeches. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to buy and to possess and to carry guns. And I think responsible people do have training. It doesn't have to be formal training. You might have your aunt or your uncle teaching you how to use a gun for the first time when you're eight years old and you learn the rules of safety. There's summer camps, scout camps that have gun marksmanship and safety. And so the obvious reason to impose these restrictions, it basically hurts working people. You don't have time to take three days off or whatever it's going to be to go through these courses. It costs a lot of money. And so if you're on the poorer side of this economic scale, it's going to discriminate against you. So I think unfortunately this is kind of law that a lot of people are going to ignore when you have registration requirements that have been set in some states for guns. There's a lot of non-compliance. And I think California passed the first so-called assault weapon ban nationwide. Once again, that's just a pejorative term for normal guns. But they passed it, but I think no more than probably 20% of the people registered the guns they had.
Narrator (24:01):
Again, it's a law that's bound to fail. It's not going to do any good in terms of stopping crime. I mean, if anything, it impedes law abiding citizens from obtaining the kind of guns that are modern and efficient that they could use to protect their homes.
Stephen Halbrook (24:18):
Yeah, Colorado, it weird to me that a seat that is in the western part of the country that had the railroad go through it, that when you think of freedom, you think of those western seats and the freedom and the liberty that they had in those seats. And sometimes you think of the westerns and it has Western towns in it, and yet they're just moving away from their past and they're just locking things down. And it's a struggle that I've seen repeatedly on many different issues. And I used to think the struggle was between liberty and just tyranny. Those who have power want more power, and those who want to be free just want to be free. And everyone divides up into two different groups. And so it's a struggle and a push and pull and a tug of war between the powerful and the people who want to just be left alone and be free.
Stephen Halbrook (25:21):
But I think there's a third prong, so it's a three way tug of war. And that third point in the triangle is those who want security and they want the government or anything that they can to just protect them and hold them and keep them safe, whether it is from gun violence or from COVID or illness or whatever it may be. They just want to be kept safe and they don't seem to take care of themselves, but they're willing to relinquish liberty and relinquish freedom and even their rights in order to have that veil of safety. But it doesn't really work that way in history, does it? When you give up your rights, you aren't, you wind up not being as safe. Hasn't history shown that over the years, especially with gun rights?
Narrator (26:17):
Yeah. And when you lose rights, you usually don't get 'em back. That's the basic lesson of history. I wrote two books on national socialism. One was called Gun Control and the Third Rite Disarming the Jews and Enemies of the State. And there you had in the v Moore, Republican, Germany in the twenties, we have to have safety, we have to have gun registration. And they admitted you, please don't let these registration records fall into the wrong hands. And of course the wrong hands get government power, the National Socialist Party, the Nazis, and they used the registration records to disarm their political enemies. And then the Jews in 1938, and the other book I wrote was called Gun Control and Nazi occupied France. So then the thirties in France, you had a socialist government and they had gun registration. And so then what do you have in 1940?
Narrator (27:17):
The Nazis come, they nail up posters that you have to turn in your guns in 24 hours or we shoot you. And guess what? The French police began working for the German military occupation. And so they had the registration list. And so a lot of French people, some turned in their guns, a lot of 'em hid them. There were a number who got shot or executed for gun ownership. And of course they needed guns to form the resistance. And so it's all throughout history, that's just one phase of history, but there are other ones. And so how far do you want to go being the nanny state or a sincere belief, and you need this for security or is it not that sincere? Is it that you want to dominate people because you know best for them? They're just the working people and we're progressives.
Narrator (28:11):
We know what's best for them, and you certainly don't want them to have any way to resist. We want to be able to tax extract the money from 'em. They can't resist. And so we will go back to your original statement about the conflict between tyranny and slavery. Basically. It still boils down to that even though you have different aspects of it. But I think it's basically an iron law of history. People can protect themselves or if they're not able to do so, they will be terrorized. And that's just the way it happens. And that's why our constitution, our second Amendment, basically our second to none worldwide. There's no other country that has such protection for the right to bear arms.
Stephen Halbrook (29:04):
And thankfully we do. I think it's part of the I Sorry about that.
Stephen Halbrook (29:33):
Okay. The challenges of modern technology, it's always, but there's always something that you have to watch out for. Well, in history, it is very difficult to go back and to get those rights back. It's why we had the American Revolution to begin with, right? You were talking about how Boston confiscated guns before the Revolutionary War, and they had to literally go to war to get their rights back, and they did everything that they could to protect those rights for future generations. And we have it pretty good in America. I have my complaints about the country. Everyone has something that they want done better or different, but we have a very good country and we have not experienced the absolute kind of tyranny that so many others in history have experienced. We did a little bit in COVID for sure, and that eased up finally, thankfully. But we just don't understand why the founders protected these rights. And then we have a school system in the country that for the last 30 or 40 years, they've done everything they can to shame the founders and say that they're no longer relevant, and they were old and dead and white and men. And it takes people like you standing up and reminding people of the history and reminding people of the importance to protect these rights.
Narrator (31:27):
Well, I think we're at a unique point. There's a lot going on. I mean, we're just so fortunate that we had a majority on the Supreme Court in 2008 in the DC versus Heller case. And we've got a good majority for other gun cases. So that counts for a lot. But you also have the fact that more and more Americans have armed themselves because of 2020. You had skyrocketing gun sales among people, including women and minorities who had not had high rates of gun ownership before that. And so I think it's no longer the situation where people, they watch movies or TV and they think, oh, guns are evil because bad guys use them. But they discovered that this is a tool of liberation. Let me just backtrack just a tad. We're the freest country in the world on this issue, but there are other countries that have had a certain amount of freedom and it's been instrumental in keeping their freedom.
Narrator (32:38):
I'd like to use the example of Switzerland founded in 1291. It was just a peasant society, but they defeated all the big armies of Europe in the Meial time and later because every man was armed. And they still have this a militia army system in which when you turn 19 as a male, you are issued a rifle and you keep it at home and you undergo militia training for several years. And by the same token, Finland has had a long-term gun culture, although in recent years there were inroads on it where you have socialists getting elected in the parliament and passing more restrictions. But since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Finland is right on the border with Russia, and there's an understanding in that country now that we need to promote rifle marksmanship. And so there's a lot more shooting ranges being open in Finland now than ever before.
Narrator (33:39):
And you have a similar situation in Sweden and Norway, two countries that have had a lot of socialists in their governments and restrictions. But now I think they're seeing the light. We have to do something. And if you want to use Ukraine itself as an example, Zelensky was an opponent of gun reforms in his country before the invasion. But then when the Russians actually came, he ordered, I think it was 20,000 full auto rifles be given out to the population in Cave because it looked like it was going to be a really quick Russian invasion, and there would have to be a resistance movement like happened in the countries of Nazi occupied Europe. Luckily it didn't turn out that way, but you had a recognition that we need an armed population. So you got a lot of drone warfare going on there now, but you still have marksmanship being a primary institution to protect the country.
Stephen Halbrook (34:41):
Those are very, very important points. When you were researching for your new book, what did you find interesting about the AR 15 that you did not know already? And what did you know that you thought was important to convey to others? Why did you write this new book?
Narrator (35:02):
Well, for one thing, I'm very familiar with this rifle and I know that it's not some kind of evil, wicked meaning nty instrument of death and the fact that they want to ban it because of some of the features they want to put you in prison because it's got a conspicuously protruding pistol grip. I mean, please, you're saying that takes it away from Second amendment protection. And another thing I've written a lot about is the history of the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms. And so if you go back to English history, it was a requirement since medieval times for free people to be armed. It was the long bow at one time, but it developed into other weapons. And so you had the English Revolution, glorious revolution of 1688, and the adoption of the English Bill of Rights, that was recognition for the right to have arms.
Narrator (35:55):
And so you have this transition to the colonies and they thought they had the same rights as Englishmen, but when General Gage sought to start confiscating guns in Massachusetts in 1775, they didn't take kindly to that. And so then we have an evolution. The US government, since the first militia Act 1792, required every male citizen to have a gun and to enroll in the militia. And then when that was done away with in the early 19 hundreds, you had the formation of the civilian marksmanship program in which the federal government continues to this very day to promote rifle and pistol marksmanship. And so you have the ability to use, there's a federal law, you can use military shooting ranges, and you have an encouragement of learning for marksmanship. This not only makes it possible, for example, when soldiers suddenly have to go to the war, like in World War ii, if they don't know how to shoot, they might lose their life. And so we have this long-term culture in our society, and keep in mind, there's only been a couple of exceptions when Congress tried to actually ban guns, the so-called assault weapon ban, and the machine gun banned from 1986, but we've got a strong heritage here, and I think more than ever before the American people are conscious of their Second Amendment rights and they're really not very willing to let those rights be taken away.
Stephen Halbrook (37:37):
I did not know that about the Civilian marksmanship program and that you could use military shooting ranges. That's very interesting to me.
Narrator (37:50):
Well, you also, you can buy rifles from the government. Actually, the Civilian Marksmanship program now is a private entity, but it's sanctioned by Congress. And so a lot, we still have a lot of M1 Goran rifles left over from World War II and from Korea, and you can actually qualify and then buy these rifles to using the shooting matches that are being encouraged by this civilian marksmanship program.
Stephen Halbrook (38:20):
Wow, that's really interesting. I did not know that. Now, Steven, how did you wind up becoming such a strong advocate for the Second Amendment?
Narrator (38:31):
Well, I was in high school and then college in the sixties, and there was a lot of turmoil in our country, including numerous attempts to either ban guns or severely restrict them. And I happened to be in one of the summer camps that had the NRA rifle program. You're just a kid. You learn safety, you get little medals and marksmanship medals. And by the time I got to college, I'm reading all about these proposals to the federal government wants to register all guns nationwide or all handguns, things like that. And it just didn't seem right. And I was also reading the Federalist papers and the debates over the Constitution. Clearly you see many references there to why we have ended up with the Second Amendment, like famous quote from Patrick Henry. The great ideal is that every man be armed, that every man have a gun that was in the Virginia Ratification Convention that ratified the federal constitution. And so a lot of statements like that were made. And so I'm reading, I'm just a college kid, but I'm reading the history of our constitution and then I'm seeing these proposals being made in Congress and also in the state level to severely restrict this. Right? And it seemed like there were a lot of defenders of the First Amendment and some of the other Bill of Rights provisions, but not many of the Second Amendments. That's how I got involved in this subject.
Stephen Halbrook (40:09):
Well, I'm really glad that you did because we need people who are willing to defend it and to explain to others why it is so important from a theoretical standpoint, from a historical standpoint, from a legal standpoint, and also from the common sense hands-on standpoint. So I'm very glad that you did that.
Narrator (40:33):
My pleasure.
Stephen Halbrook (40:35):
Well, thank you so much for joining me today. If people want to get your book, how can they get it? You said your website is steven halbrook.com?
Narrator (40:43):
Yes. And you can just Google my name, Steven Hallbrook America's rifle, the case for the AR 15. You can find it on Amazon or wherever you like to get books, and it's very widely available. And if you look at my website, you see some of my other books on Second Amendment rights, and you might find that of interest as well. But this book, I think it's important at this time. I think this is going to go to the Supreme Court in the next term or two. Justice Kavanaugh predicted that. So it's called America's Rifle, the case for the AR 15.
Stephen Halbrook (41:17):
Very good. Well everyone, make sure you go pick it up. Let's learn about it so that when it does go before the Supreme Court, we're able to defend it in debates with our fellow citizens. And thank you so much for being with me today, Steven. I learned a lot and I really appreciate your time.
Narrator (41:34):
My pleasure, Jenny Beth, you take care.
Jenny Beth Martin (41:36):
The Jenny Beth Show is hosted by Jenny Beth Martin, produced by Kevin Han and directed by Luke Livingston. The Jenny Beth Show is a production of Tea Party Patriots action. For more information, visit tea party patriots.org.
Stephen Halbrook (41:56):
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