Famed author and Second Amendment litigator to speak on gun control in the Third Reich

It’s hard to encapsulate a career like that of famed author and Second Amendment litigator Dr. Stephen Halbrook into one or two paragraphs, or even a column.

Halbrook personally argued three gun-related cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, winning all three.

He’s testified before Congress, appeared on numerous television programs and written briefs on the two most significant Second Amendment cases ever heard by the Supreme Court, MacDonald v. Chicago and D.C. v. Heller.

For Heller, he was asked to write a brief on behalf of the majority of lawmakers in both the U.S. House and Senate.

Halbrook’s “Firearms Law Deskbook,” is a must-have “co-counsel” for prosecutors, defense attorneys and Second Amendment scholars.

His “That Every Man Be Armed,” which was first published in 1984 and updated in 2013, traces the “philosophical, historical, and legal roots of the right of the citizen to have arms, beginning in ancient Greece and carrying the analysis forward to legal and policy controversies of today.”

Reviewers have called it the most comprehensive, most definitive and best written treatise on the Second Amendment ever published.

Perhaps U.S. District Judge Michael J. Reagan, in the 2014 case Shepard v. Madigan, summed him up best: “Stephen Halbrook is an attorney with extensive knowledge of the historical underpinnings of the Second Amendment and practical knowledge of litigating in this rapidly evolving area of law. His writings include topics as diverse as ‘Gun Control in the Third Reich’ and ‘The Founders’ Second Amendment,’ and he was heavily involved in Heller and McDonald.”

Halbrook will be signing books and speaking about one of his areas of expertise — gun control in the Third Reich — at 5:30 p.m. on Oct. 13 at the Al Katz Center for Holocaust Survivors & Jewish Learning Inc., 5710 Cortez Road in Bradenton.

The Al Katz Center is a nonprofit that serves hundreds of Jews and non-Jews every year.

Halbrook’s appearance coincides with the upcoming anniversary of Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass,” when thousands of Jews were rounded up and sent to concentration camps, their property seized and their businesses, homes and synagogues destroyed.

Halbrook addressed Kristallnacht in a previous article: “What made the Nazi Holocaust possible?” The answer he found was that Jewish-owned firearms were registered, “and thus easily confiscated.”

Dr. Beverly Newman, who directs the Al Katz Center, which was named for her father, said of Halbrook’s upcoming lecture: “I can’t believe we are so blessed!”

Tickets for the event are $10. For reservations, call Newman at 941-313-9239.

Newman said the Center kept the cost low because “religion and information like this should be accessible to the masses.”

“This is a religious duty,” she said. “My family would have been able to live if they had been able to arm themselves.”

Her father was taken from his home in Paderborn, Germany, on Kristallnacht and forced into seven years of slave labor and a “death march” to Dachau.

He survived the Holocaust. His parents, two siblings and niece did not.

“My father survived by the Hand of God,” Newman said.

— If we don’t run into each other at the range, you can reach me at (941) 284-8553, by email at lee.williams@heraldtribune.com or by regular mail, 1741 Main St., Sarasota, FL 34236. You also can follow me on social media at facebook.com/TheGunWriter or Twitter.com/ht_gunwriter or watch us on our new YouTube Channel