Skip to main content
Policy Forum

The Future of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms

Co-sponsored by the Federalist Society’s Civil Rights Practice Group

Watch the Event

Join the conversation on X using #CatoEvents. Follow @CatoInstitute on X to get future event updates, live streams, and videos from the Cato Institute.

Date and Time
-
Location
Auditorium/Wintergarden
Share This Event
Featuring
Featuring Alan Gura, Partner, Gura & Possessky, P.L.L.C.; Dennis Henigan, Vice President, Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence; Nelson Lund, Professor, George Mason University Law School; and Alan B. Morrison, Professor, The George Washington University Law School; moderated by Roger Pilon, Director, Center for Constitutional Studies, Cato Institute.

In 2008, for the first time in our history, the Supreme Court invoked the Second Amendment to strike down a gun-control law, holding that the federal government may not prohibit law-abiding citizens from keeping a handgun in the home for self defense. In 2010, the Court held that state and local governments are also prohibited from banning handguns in the home. Major victories for individual liberty, those decisions were also very narrow. Can we expect future decisions to recognize a wide range of rights to keep and bear arms? Or will the Court’s recent decisions turn out to be mostly symbolic, with little effect on legislative discretion to regulate access to firearms? Please join us for a discussion of opposing views about what the courts are likely to do and what they should do.