The Volokh Conspiracy

Alan Gura and Walter Dellinger Discuss Their Strategies in Heller:
The video is here. Thanks to SCOTUSblog for the link.
private:
[Deleted by OK on civility grounds]
8.21.2008 3:44pm
Gene Hoffman (mail) (www):
If only Walter could remember the first name of the lawyer who beat him...

-Gene
8.21.2008 8:37pm
Jon Roland (mail) (www):
I was generally disappointed in the lack of competence exhibited by both. Dellinger had a position without merit, but I find ways it could have been argued that are better than the ones used. Gura had all the merits on his side and still managed to blow it on some critical points, leaving us with ambiguous dictum that will undoubtedly be used to further infringe on the RKBA. At the very least he should have insisted that weapons not subject to "reasonable restriction" are those in common use by the military, not by civilians.
8.22.2008 11:53am
James Gibson (mail):
A copy of the Feedback I sent to FORA.TV on this discussion.

In regards to your program on the Heller ruling I wanted to comment that both Mr. Dellinger and Mr. Guru, for all their research, have several key facts wrong about the history of the 2nd Amendment. This is not surprising as your narrator commented that both sides of the issue used Elliot's notes on the State conventions as sources even though it is now admitted that this source is full of false statements and events. Many of the Heller documents, provided by groups supporting the Cities position, were edited to change the intent or meaning of the information there in to support the prohibition. Further, its clear that the four dissenting justices were given private briefings by the gun control side because of the presence of historical statements in their dissent, or their verbal arguments, that were not found in the supplied Briefs. Thus, this battle of the documents, was in reality a battle over historical truth and the continuing war against histories written for political purposes.
8.22.2008 1:37pm

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