Education: Georgetown University Law Center, J.D. (1978); Florida State University,
B.S. Business (1969), Ph.D. Philosophy (1972). Assistant Professor of Philosophy - George
Mason University, 1980-81; Howard University, 1974-79; Tuskegee Institute, 1972-74. Fellow,
Independent Institute.
Contact information: Stephen P. Halbrook, 3925 Chain Bridge Road, Suite 403, Fairfax,
VA 22030, tel. (703) 352-7276, fax (703) 359-0938,
protell@aol.com,
www.stephenhalbrook.com
Federal and State Courts (selected):
Baca v. New Mexico Dept. of Public Safety, 132 N.M. 282, 47 P.3d 441 (2002)
Blaustein & Reich, Inc. v. Buckles, 365 F.3d 281 (4th Cir. 2004)
Coalition of New Jersey Sportsmen v. Whitman, 44 F. Supp.2d 666 (D.N.J. 1999), aff'd, 263 F.3d 157 (3d Cir. 2001), cert. denied, 534 U.S. 1039 (2001).
Farmer v. Higgins, 907 F.2d 1041 (11th Cir. 1990), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 1047 (1991)
F.J. Vollmer Co., F.J. Vollmer Co., Inc. v. Higgins, 23 F.3d 448 (D.C. Cir. 1994), later proceeding, F.J. Vollmer Co., Inc. v. Magaw, 102 F.3d 591 (D.C. Cir. 1996)
Fresno Rifle & Pistol Club, Inc. v. Van de Kamp, 965 F.2d 723 (9th Cir. 1992)
Gilbert Equipment Co., Inc. v. Higgins, 709 F. Supp. 1071 (S.D. Ala. 1989), aff'd, 894 F.2d 412 (11th Cir. 1990) (mem.)
Gun Owners' Action League, Inc. v. Swift, 284 F.3d 198 (1st Cir. 2002)
Koog/McGee v. U.S., 79 F.3d 452 (5th Cir. 1996)
Lomont v. Summers, 285 F.3d 9 (D.C. Cir. 2002)
NRA v. Brady, 914 F.2d 475 (4th Cir. 1990), cert. denied, 499 U.S. 959 (1991), later proceeding, NRA v. Bentsen, 999 F.2d 772 (4th Cir. 1993)
NRA v. City of South Miami, 774 So. 2d 815 (Fla. 3rd DCA 2000), later proceeding, 812 So. 2d 504 (2002)
NRA v. Nagin, 2005 WL 2428840 (E.D. La. 2005)
NRA v. Reno, 216 F.3d 122 (D.C. Cir. 2000), cert. denied, 533 U.S. 928 (2001)
NRA v. Village of Oak Park, 617 F. Supp.2d 752 (N.D. Ill. 2008),
aff’d, NRA v. City of
Chicago, 567 F.3d 856 (7th Cir. 2009), cert. petition filed, No. 08-1497 (June 3, 2009)
Peoples Rights Organization, Inc. v. City of Columbus, 152 F.3d 522 (6th Cir. 1998)
Richmond Boro Gun Club, Inc. v. City of New York, 97 F.3d 681 (2nd Cir. 1996)
Robertson v. City of Denver, 874 P.2d 325 (Colo. 1994)
RSM, Inc. v. Buckles, 94 F. Supp. 2d 692 (D. Md. 2000), rev'd, 254 F.3d 61 (4th Cir. 2001)
Seegars v. Ashcroft, 396 F.3d 1248 (D.C. Cir. 2005), reh. denied, 413 F.3d 1 (D.C. Cir. 2005), cert. denied, 126 S.Ct. 1187 (2006)
Springfield Armory, Inc. v. City of Columbus, 29 F.3d 250 (6th Cir. 1994)
Springfield, Inc. v. Buckles, 292 F.3d 813 (D.C. Cir. 2002)
U.S. v. Bundy, 392 F.3d 641 (4th Cir. 2004).
U.S. v. Fourteen Various Firearms, 889 F. Supp. 875, later proceeding, 899 F. Supp. 249 (E.D. Va. 1995)
U.S. v. Rock Island Armory, Inc., 773 F. Supp. 117 (C.D. Ill. 1991).
Books
Firearms Law Deskbook: Federal and State Criminal Practice. St. Paul, MN: Thomson/West, 2008. Supplemented annually.
The Founders’ Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee,
2008.
Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Right to Bear Arms, 1866-1876. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 1998.
That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984. Reprinted in 1994, 2000 by Independent Institute, Oakland, Ca.
A Right to Bear Arms: State and Federal Bills of Rights and Constitutional Guarantees. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1989.
The Swiss and the Nazis: How the Alpine Republic Survived in the Shadow of the Third Reich. Havertown, Pa.: Casemate Publishers; Gloucestershire, UK: Spellmount Ltd., 2006.
Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II. Rockville Center, N.Y.: Sarpedon Publishers, 1998 (hardback); Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2003 (paperback). Also published in German, French, Italian, and Polish.
LAW REVIEW ARTICLES (selected)
"‘Arms in the Hands of Jews Are Danger to Public Safety': Nazism, Firearm Registration, and the Night of the Broken Glass,"
St. Thomas University Law Review (forthcoming).
"Citizens in Arms: The Swiss Experience," Texas Review of Law & Politics, vol. 8, Issue 1 (Fall 2003), 142. www.stephenhalbrook.com/law_review_articles/citizens?in?arms.pdf. Oral presentation in A Question of Balance (DVD: www.jamesswan.com/AQOBsgs.html).
"Congress Interprets the Second Amendment,"62 Tennessee Law Review 597 (Spring 1995). www.stephenhalbrook.com/law_review_articles/congress.pdf
"Firearms, the Fourth Amendment, & Air Carrier Security," 53 Journal of Air Law & Commerce, 585 (1987), reprinted in Serial No. 91, House Judiciary Committee, 100th Cong., 1st Sess., 174 (1987).
"The Fourteenth Amendment and the Right to Keep and Bear Arms: The Intent of the
Framers," The Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, 97th Cong., 2d Sess., 68-82 (1982).
http://www.stephenhalbrook.com/law_review_articles/14th-amendment.pdf
"The Freedmen's Bureau Act and the Conundrum Over Whether the Fourteenth
Amendment Incorporates the Second Amendment," 29 Northern Kentucky Law Review, No. 4, 683-703 (2002).
http://www.stephenhalbrook.com/law_review_articles/fba.PDF
"Military Enforcement of the Drug Laws," in K. and E. Zeese, Drug Law 6-44 (Clark Boardman Callahan, 1993).
"Miller versus Texas: Police Violence, Race Relations, Capital Punishment, and Gun-toting," 9 Journal of Law and Policy, No. 3, 737 (2001) (with C. Leonardatos & D. Kopel).
www.stephenhalbrook.com/law_review_articles/miller_v_texas.htm
"Nazi Firearms Law & the Disarming of the German Jews," 17 Ariz. Jour. of International & Comparative Law, No. 3, 483 (2000).
www.stephenhalbrook.com/article?nazilaw.pdf.
“Nazism, the Second Amendment, and the NRA: A Reply to Professor Harcourt,” 11 Tex.
Rev. L. & Pol. 113 (2006).
http://stephenhalbrook.com/law_review_articles/nazism.nra.pdf
'Only Law Enforcement Will Be Allowed to Have Guns’: Hurricane Katrina and the New
Orleans Firearm Confiscations,” 18 Geo. Mason U. Civ. Rts. L.J. 339 (Spring 2008). 18 GMUCRLJ
339.
"Personal Security, Personal Liberty, and ‘the Constitutional Right to Bear Arms': Visions of the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment," 5
Seton Hall Constitutional Law Journal 341-434 (Spring 1995).
"Redefining a 'Crime' as a Sentencing Factor to Circumvent the Right to Jury Trial," Cato Supreme Court Review, 2001-2002, 187.
www.cato.org/pubs/scr/docs/2002/halbrook.pdf
"The Right of Workers to Assemble & to Bear Arms: Presser v. Illinois," 76 Univ. of Detroit Mercy Law Rev. 943 (Summer 1999).
www.stephenhalbrook.com/law_review_articles/presser.pdf
"The Right to Bear Arms in Texas," 41 Baylor Law Review, 629 (1989). "Second-Class Citizenship and the Second Amendment in the District of Columbia," 5 George Mason University Civil Rights Law Journal, Nos. 1 & 2, 105 (1995).
www.stephenhalbrook.com/law_review_articles/citizenship.pdf
“Second-Class Citizenship and the Second Amendment in the District of Columbia,” 5
George Mason University Civil Rights Law Journal, Nos. 1 & 2, 105 (1995).
www.stephenhalbrook.com/law_review_articles/citizenship.pdf
“St. George Tucker’s Second Amendment: Deconstructing ‘The True Palladium of Liberty,’”
3 Tennessee Journal of Law and Policy, No. 2, 120-55 (Spring 2007).
http://stephenhalbrook.com/law_review_articles/Deconstructing_The_True_Palladium_of_Liberty.pdf
"Suing the Firearms Industry: A Case for Federal Reform?" 7 Chapman Law Review 11-38 (Spring 2004).
www.stephenhalbrook.com/law_review_articles/suing.pdf
"What the Framers Intended: A Linguistic Analysis of the Right to ‘Bear Arms,'" 49 Law
and Contemporary Problems 401-412 (1986).
http://www.stephenhalbrook.com/law_review_articles/linguistic-analysis.pdf
SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
American Bar Association, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Fairfax Bar
Association, U.S. Congress Constitutional Forum, Heritage Foundation, Federalist Society, Cato
Institute, American Enterprise Institute, various law schools, numerous CLE lectures. Phil Donahue
Show, History Channel, Court TV, numerous TV/radio shows. Testified in Senate and House
Judiciary Committees, U.S. Congress.
Mr. Halbrook has been engaged in civil litigation and criminal defense since 1978,
particularly regarding constitutional issues involving Federalism and Bill of Rights guarantees.
Represent firearm associations, manufacturers, importers, and owners in administrative, civil,
and criminal proceedings under federal, state, and local law, including before the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Member of Virginia State Bar, District of
Columbia Bar, U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Courts of Appeals – most circuits, other selected
Federal Courts.