The Firing Line Forums - View Single Post - Dennis Hennigan, the brains of the Brady Bunch?

Bartholomew Roberts · November 5, 2009, 01:28 PM

I just read an interesting article by Dave Kopel where he reviews the latest anti-gun books from Dennis Hennigan (Brady) and Josh Horowitz (VPC).
http://davekopel.org/2A/Mags/Gun-Banner-Books.pdf

In the article, he points out that Hennigan was one of the first on the anti-gun side to try and re-frame the collective rights argument into a very, very, very narrow; but individual rights interpretation and that he started the scholarship for this in the 1990s.

Given that the dissenting Justices of the Heller Court completely discounted the collective rights theory and did in fact adopt the "narrow individual rights" theory (which had the same result as the collective rights theory), it would suggest that Dennis Hennigan is somebody to keep an eye on.

For one, I would never have dreamed in the 1990s amidst the AWB, Brady Bill, Lautenberg, FFLs being pushed out of business, etc. that the soundness of the collective rights theory might be challenged successfully and how an individual right could be read so narrowly as to destroy the right entirely. Hennigan apparently not only saw that possible threat lurking in the midst of overwhelming success, he started developing the groundwork that the Heller dissent was based on.

For that reason, Kopel suggests it is instructive to look at what arguments Hennigan advances and what arguments he has abandoned in his attempts to restrict the Second Amendment.

November 5, 2009, 01:28 PM	#1
Bartholomew Roberts member Join Date: June 12, 2000 Location: Texas and Oklahoma area Posts: 8,462	Dennis Hennigan, the brains of the Brady Bunch? I just read an interesting article by Dave Kopel where he reviews the latest anti-gun books from Dennis Hennigan (Brady) and Josh Horowitz (VPC). http://davekopel.org/2A/Mags/Gun-Banner-Books.pdf In the article, he points out that Hennigan was one of the first on the anti-gun side to try and re-frame the collective rights argument into a very, very, very narrow; but individual rights interpretation and that he started the scholarship for this in the 1990s. Given that the dissenting Justices of the Heller Court completely discounted the collective rights theory and did in fact adopt the "narrow individual rights" theory (which had the same result as the collective rights theory), it would suggest that Dennis Hennigan is somebody to keep an eye on. For one, I would never have dreamed in the 1990s amidst the AWB, Brady Bill, Lautenberg, FFLs being pushed out of business, etc. that the soundness of the collective rights theory might be challenged successfully and how an individual right could be read so narrowly as to destroy the right entirely. Hennigan apparently not only saw that possible threat lurking in the midst of overwhelming success, he started developing the groundwork that the Heller dissent was based on. For that reason, Kopel suggests it is instructive to look at what arguments Hennigan advances and what arguments he has abandoned in his attempts to restrict the Second Amendment.