This week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Garland v. VanDerStok, a case challenging the authority of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to regulate “ghost guns” under the Gun Control Act. In this episode, Clark Neily of the Cato Institute and Dru Stevenson of the South Texas College of Law join Jeffrey Rosen to recap the oral arguments and debate whether ghost guns—which are untraceable weapons without serial numbers, assembled from components or kits that can be bought online—may be regulated as firearms.
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Today’s episode was produced by Lana Ulrich, Samson Mostashari, and Bill Pollock. It was engineered by Bill Pollock. Research was provided by Samson Mostashari, Cooper Smith, Gyuha Lee, Matthew Spero, and Yara Daraiseh.
Participants
Clark Neily is senior vice president for legal studies at the Cato Institute. Before joining Cato, Neily was a senior attorney and constitutional litigator at the Institute for Justice and director of the Institute’s Center for Judicial Engagement. He is also an adjunct professor at George Mason’s Antonin Scalia School of Law, where he teaches constitutional litigation and public-interest law. His most recent book is Terms of Engagement: How Our Courts Should Enforce the Constitution’s Promise of Limited Government.
Dru Stevenson is a law professor at the South Texas College of Law. He previously served as a legal aid lawyer in Connecticut, and became an assistant attorney general for the state of Connecticut. His current research focus is firearm law and policy and he is the author of numerous articles about the Second Amendment and firearm law.
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center. Rosen is also a professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic. His most recent book is The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America.
Additional Resources:
- Garland v. VanDerStock (oral argument audio via CSPAN; argument transcript)
- Dru Stevenson, quoted in: “‘Ghost guns’ in the crosshairs”, BusinessDay (March 7, 2024)
- Drury Stevenson, "Shall Not Be Infringed," (July 2024)
- Clark Neily, quoted in: “Will ‘sigh of relief’ after US supreme court gun ruling be short-lived?,” The Guardian (June 22, 2024)
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