I had the opportunity to attend a Continuing Legal Education debate between Alan Gura (the lead counsel for the Plaintiff in the Heller case) and Brian Siebel (an attorney for the Brady Campaign) sponsored by the Pennsylvania Bar Institute today.

I was very impressed with Gura. He has a sharp eye for constitutional issues, and clearly knows the history of gun laws going back to the English Declaration of Rights cold. If you have an interest in the constitutional law and history of the Second Amendment, I strongly recommend going to hear him speak.

I wasn't as impressed with Siebel -- not just, I hope, because he took a view I opposed, but more because he seemed reluctant to engage issues of constitutionality very much, and kept falling back on statistics concerning gun crimes which, while interesting, didn't really address the Second amendment issues. (Can't say that I blame him -- his side had had its turn at bat before the Court and lost, so it's not like he had that much to say at this point.)

Interesting points from the debate (from my scattered notes):

* Gura kept arguing that because the Court held that the 2d Amend. was an individual right, that strict scrutiny should apply to any restrictions on that right. The key to this is Footnote 4 from the Carolene Products decision, the text of which supports the idea that enumerated rights (i.e., the rights spelled out in the first ten amendments) have more explicit protection against infringement.

* Siebel disagreed. He felt that the Heller decision, such as it is, only protected the right to carry a firearm in the defense of one's home (he quoted the decision several times, saying that the Heller Court consistently referred to the individual right protected by the 2d Amend. as being linked to defense of the home.) He said that a reasonable regulation standard should be applied to test the constitutionality of gun laws.

* Siebel stated that the Brady Campaign was okay with Heller as long as it was limited to the above.

* Gura felt that it was likely, in the wake of Heller, that the Court would incorporate the 2d amend. to apply to the States via the 14th amend.

* Gura is currently pursuing another case against Chicago's anti-gun laws. See http://www.chicagoguncase.com. See also http://www.dcguncase.com for information on the Heller decision.

* Siebel said that since the Heller decision took the issue of a complete ban on handguns off the table, the NRA could no longer argue that restrictions on guns, waiting periods, and the like would lead to a slippery slope ending with firearm confiscations.

* Gura said that he would feel safer in States with few firearms regulations than ones that were very restrictive. Siebel claimed that the top five states with firearms-related deaths (Louisiana, Tennesee, Montana were some of them) did not have very stringent firearms laws, while the bottom five states in terms of firearms-related deaths (I remember him saying Massachusetts and Hawai'i,) had the strongest firearms laws. (This was definitely Siebel's strongest point.)

* Siebel launched into assault weapons at one point. Something to the effect of: these are military-style semi-automatic weapons, descended (?) from military weapons, and that a thirty round magazine could be emptied by in five seconds in one of these.

* Gura said there was no clear definition of "assault weapon", it was perjorative term, he explained the differences between semi-automatic and full automatic ("machine gun"). Most guns sold are semi-automatic, nothing magic about them.

* The issue was brought up about magazine size. Siebel started talking about pistols with 30 round magazines, argued that a 10 round magazine would be sufficient for self defense purpose because (and this is a direct quote "you fire one bullet and the criminal will be high-tailing it." Also, once people are in a self-defense situation, they'll just fire off every round, and what'll end up happening is that a bullet will go through a wall and kill your neighbor's innocent child.

* Gura: "If you're going to hit the bad guy with the eleventh round, and you only have ten, that impacts your life." Gura didn't think that a restriction on magazine size should pass strict scrutiny; most handguns sold now have magazine sizes in the 10-20 range, these are weapons in common use.


Of course, a lot more was said, but that's all I had time to write.... Interesting discussion!