An Open Letter to the NRA

March 27, 2000

Mr. Charlton Heston
President
National Rifle Association of America
11250 Waples Mill Rd.
Fairfax, Virginia 22030

Dear Mr. Heston,

We are law professors and historians who have a deep interest in the Second Amendment and its implications for the regulation of guns and of gun ownership. Our politics run the gamut. But we are united on the vital importance of putting to rest any misperception that the Second Amendment prohibits a wide range of effective and reasonable firearms regulations.

There is room for debate about which firearms policies will best serve Americans. But the law is well-settled that the Second Amendment permits broad and intensive regulation of firearms, including laws that ban certain types of weapons, require safety devices on others, mandate registration and licensing and otherwise impose strict regulatory oversight of the firearms industry. These and similar regulations are fully consistent with the Second Amendment.

The Second Amendment ? quoted in full ? states that ?A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.? The United States Supreme Court and every federal appellate court to consider the issue have held that the Second Amendment permits a wide range of reasonable gun control laws. And although academic views differ regarding whether the Second Amendment does more than protect the state militia from being disarmed by federal law, we all agree that the Amendment plainly permits reasonable firearms regulations including those set forth above.

The National Rifle Association?s repeated suggestions that the Second Amendment somehow stands in the way of effective and reasonable regulation of guns and gun ownership is a distortion of legal precedent and a disservice to all Americans, the great majority of whom support thoughtful firearms policies. The issue at hand transcends the liberal/conservative divide: prominent conservatives like the late Chief Justice Warren Burger and the late Solicitor General Erwin Griswold allied themselves against the NRA?s overbroad reading of the Second Amendment. Moreover, as this letter makes clear, it is false and misleading for the NRA to cite any of us or our scholarship as authority for the notion that the Second Amendment prohibits reasonable regulation of the manufacture, transfer, ownership and possession of guns.

We encourage you and your supporters to focus on the real issue facing our country ? and it isn?t the Second Amendment. The central issue on which we all should focus is what sort of firearms legislation and policies will best prevent the killings and violence that plague our country today.

Sincerely,

(see attached list of endorsers)

cc: Wayne LaPierre, NRA Executive Vice-President

Academic Endorsers of the Letter to Charlton Heston Regarding the Second Amendment:

1. Akhil Reed Amar Southmayd Professor of Law
Yale Law School

2. Edward Ayers Hugh P. Kelly Professor of History
University of Virginia

3. Michael Bellesiles Professor of History
Emory University

4. Carl T. Bogus Professor of Law
Roger Williams University Law School

5. Jeff Brand Professor of Law
University of San Francisco School of Law

6. John L. Brooke Stern Professor of American History
Tufts University

7. Edwin G. Burrows Professor of History
Brooklyn College

8. Richard M. Buxbaum Professor of Law
Boalt Hall School of Law

9. Andrew Cayton Professor of History
Miami University

10. Erwin Chemerinsky Sydney M. Irmas Professor of Public Interest Law, Legal Ethics and Political Science
University of Southern California Law School

11. Saul Cornell Associate Professor of History
Ohio State University

12. Edward Countryman University Distinguished Professor
Southern Methodist University

13. Michael C. Dorf Professor of Law
Columbia University

14. Norman Dorsen Stokes Professor of Law
New York University School of Law

15. David R. Dow George Butler Research Professor of Law
University of Houston Law Center

16. Robert R. Dykstra Professor of History and Public Policy
State University of New York (SUNY) Albany

17. Susan Estrich Robert Kingsley Professor of Law and Political Science
University of Southern California Law School

18. Heidi Feldman Associate Professor of Law
Georgetown Professor of Law

19. Don Higginbotham Dowd Professor of History
University of North Carolina

20. Peter Hoffer Research Professor of History
University of Georgia

21. N.E.H. Hull Distinguished Professor of Law and History
Rutgers University, Camden

22. Nancy Isenberg Associate Professor of History
University of Northern Iowa

23. Yale Kamisar Clarence Darrow Distinguished University Professor
University of Michigan Law School

24. Michael Kammen Professor of American History and Culture
Cornell University

25. Stanley Katz Professor in Public and International Affairs
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs

26. David M. Kennedy Donald I. McLachlan Professor of History
Stanford University

27. Christopher Kutz Associate Professor of Law
Boalt Hall School of Law

28. Jill Lepore Associate Professor of History
Boston University

29. Jan Lewis Professor of History
Rutgers University, Newark

30. Rory Little Professor of Law
Hastings College of Law

31. Ronald Mann Professor of Law
University of Michigan Law School

32. Mari Matsuda Professor of Law
Georgetown University Law Center

33. Andrew J. McClurg Nadine H. Baum Distinguished Professor of Law
University of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Law

34. Mary Beth Norton Mary Donlon Professor of American History
Cornell University

35. Michael L. Perlin Professor of Law
New York Law School

36. Jack Rakove Coe Professor of History and American Studies
Stanford University

37. Peter M. Shane Professor of Law
University of Pittsburgh School of Law

38. Billy Smith Professor of History
Montana State University, Bozeman

39. Laurence H. Tribe Ralph S. Tyler, Jr., Professor of Constitutional Law
Harvard Law School

40. Richard Uviller Professor of Law
Columbia Law School

41. Charles D. Weisselberg Professor of Law
Boalt Hall School of Law

42. Robin West Professor of Law
Georgetown University Law Center

43. Welsh S. White Professor of Law
University of Pittsburgh

44. William M. Wiecek Conadon Professor of Public Law and Professor of History
Syracuse University College of Law

45. Gary Wills Adjunct Professor of History
Northwestern University

46. David Yassky Assistant Professor of Law
Brooklyn Law School

47. Michael Zuckerman Professor of History
University of Pennsylvania