Anyone who’s aware of the history of the black civil rights movement knows that it was a multi-generational struggle. There’s little reason to believe that the movement to protect the civil right of keeping and bearing arms is going to be any different. The greats of our movement, who laid the scholarly foundations that made the successes in Heller and McDonald possible, are unfortunately getting old. It is necessary to incubate and foster a new generation of legal minds to continue the scholarship necessary to take this struggle well into the 21st century. It is with this in mind that I spent the weekend as a guest to NRA’s Civil Rights Defense Fund.
The CRDF hosted a seminar for up-and coming legal scholars, hosted by the very people who put Second Amendment legal scholarship on the map, and made the “standard model” the mainstream viewpoint. It featured lectures from Don Kates, Dave Hardy, Joyce Malcolm, Bob Cottrol, Dave Kopel, Nick Johnson, Steve Halbrook, and several others folks who I will feature as I speak more about the weekend in upcoming posts. I should note that if the caliber of people I met this weekend is any indication, the Second Amendment will be in good hands. As someone with no formal legal training, I certainly felt out of my league. The seminar attendees came from all four corners of North America. From Maine to Florida, over to California, up to Idaho and onward to Alberta. Yes, we even had a Canadian attendee.
I’ll have more to relay as the week progresses, but while the Brady Campaign were busy lighting candles to mourn the passing of their relevance, we were busy trying to secure the future of Second Amendment scholarship. This was a first of its kind event, but if this weekend is any indication, I’m very optimistic for future successes.
I would love to hear more!
Now that’s some great news to start a Mnday off with!
Sounds like quite an interesting wknd spent with great minds. Whatever you feel is appropriate to share about this wknd in a public forum (knowing that both sides will be reading of course), would be very insightful.
Glad to hear that you were given the opportunity to attend such an event! Kudos!
Was? Still is.
I’m speaking here of the legal aspect of the struggle, no the overall social movement. For the most part, they have won on the legal count.
In light of the war on drugs, the war on guns, the war on poverty, and the war on education I disagree. So long as we have multiple large parts of local, state, and federal governments actively waging legal warfare upon minorities (and everyone else) they won’t be free and the legal aspect of the struggle is long from over.