David B. Kopel. 19 Journal of Firearms & Public Policy 144 (2007): “If every family in the world owned a good-quality rifle and an ample supply of ammunition, genocide would be greatly reduced, and perhaps eliminated.
On October 21, 2014, David Kopel honored us with a compelling and entertaining presentation on armed resistance to genocide driving home the point that genocidal and tyrannical leaders come to power when the citizenry is unarmed.
Not all countries with severe gun controls perpetrate genocide; but no genocidal governments allow any but the most politically reliable segments of the population to own guns.
Because every government which in the last hundred years which has engaged in genocide has first disarmed its victim population, there is reason to believe that those governments see a relationship between gun control and the maintenance of the government’s murderous power.”
David B. Kopel earned his JD, magna cum laude, from the University of Michigan, and his BA, with Highest Honors in History, from Brown University. He is Research Director of the Independence Institute, a public policy research organization in Golden, Colorado, and is an Associate Policy Analyst with the Cato Institute, in Washington, D.C.
Kopel is one of several contributors to The Volokh Conspiracy, a group weblog of law professors. He has written hundreds of opinion articles for periodicals such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Denver Post.
He is the author of 12 books, and 72 scholarly articles published in journals such as the Michigan Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, SAIS Review, and the Brown Journal on World Affairs. His topics include constitutional law, international law, criminal justice, technology, antitrust, media issues, and environmental policy. He has contributed entries to nine academic encyclopedias, and served on the Board of Editors for one.
His research has been cited by eight state supreme courts, three federal circuit court of appeals, and over five hundred law review articles.
In 2008, he appeared before the United States Supreme Court as part of the team presenting the oral argument in District of Columbia v. Heller. His Heller amicus brief for a law coalition of law enforcement organizations and district attorneys was cited four times in the Court’s Heller opinions. His brief in McDonald v. Chicago (2010) was cited by Justice Alito’s plurality opinion, and twice by Justice Stevens’ dissent.
He has testified numerous times before Congress and state legislatures, including before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on the Supreme Court nominations of Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.
Kopel appears weekly on Colorado Inside-Out, a public affairs discussion program on Colorado Public Television, channel 12.
Before joining the Independence Institute, he served as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Colorado, dealing with enforcement of hazardous waste, Superfund, and other environmental laws. In 1998-99, he served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at New York University. From 2001 to 2009 he was a media columnist for the Rocky Mountain News.
