Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights — the same one where I testified regarding campaign finance post-Citizens United last summer — held a hearing, titled “Proposals to Reduce Gun Violence: Protecting Our Communities While Respecting the Second Amendment.” In the lead-up to the hearing, the subcommittee’s new ranking member, Sen. Ted Cruz (R‑TX), solicited written testimony from Cato on the subject. He got it in spades. Here are the Cato-affiliated scholars who submitted materials:
- Associate policy analyst David Kopel provided an excellent summary of his decades of research on firearms law and policy.
- Senior fellow Randy Barnett outlined the constitutional considerations that must attend any discussion of gun regulation.
- Chairman Bob Levy attached a short cover letter to his timely National Law Journal article that critiques the current state of play.
- I sent in an essay about the right to keep and bear arms generally that incorporates two blogposts and five op-eds by Kopel, Levy, Trevor Burrus, and myself.
If anyone else on Capitol Hill needs a full-court press on an issue ahead of a hearing, you know where to find Cato.
