“Be it resolved that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms should be limited to the home.”

5:30 – Reception
6:00 – Debate

Registration requested »

5:30-7:30 p.m., S.J. Quinney College of Law Moot Courtroom (Level 6)
In a pair of deeply divided opinions a decade ago, the U.S. Supreme Court made clear that the Second Amendment provides an individual constitutional right to possess a firearm at home for self-defense. But those cases also approved of some long-standing prohibitions on gun possession, and they did not precisely define either the scope of the Second Amendment right or the boundaries of permissible firearm regulation. Judges, lawmakers, and scholars across the country continue to debate these questions, with some suggesting that the jurisprudential, historical, and real-world arguments favor an exclusively home-based right and others arguing that the scope cannot be so limited, either as a constitutional or as a practical matter. Which view is right? What consequences follow from each? And does the Supreme Court’s decision to hear a new Second Amendment case suggest that the Court will offer additional insights on the question?

Watch this event on the S.J. Quinney College of Law YouTube Channel »

Free and open to the public. 1 hour CLE.

Debate Participants:

Darrell Miller, Melvin G. Shimm Professor of Law, Duke University
Darrell A. H. Miller is the Melvin G. Shimm Professor of Law at Duke University School of Law and faculty co-director of the Duke Center for Firearms Law. His scholarship on the Second Amendment has been published in leading law reviews such as the Yale Law Journal, the University of Chicago Law Review, and the Columbia Law Review, and has been cited by the Supreme Court of the United States, the United States Courts of Appeals, the United States District Courts, and in congressional testimony and legal briefs. With Joseph Blocher, he’s the author of The Positive Second Amendment: Rights, Regulation, and the Future of Heller (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Miller is a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School where he served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review, and a graduate of Oxford University and Anderson University.

George Mocsary, Professor of Law, University of Wyoming College of Law
Before joining the faculty of the Southern Illinois University School of Law as an Assistant Professor, George A. Mocsary spent two years as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law. He entered academia after having practiced corporate and bankruptcy law at Cravath, Swaine and Moore in New York. Before that, he clerked for the Honorable Harris L. Hartz of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. Professor Mocsary holds a J.D. from Fordham Law School where he graduated first in his class and summa cum laude. He also served as Notes and Articles Editor of the Fordham Law Review, and was the recipient of the Benjamin Finkel Prize for Excellence in Bankruptcy and Fordham Law Alumni Association Medal in Constitutional Law. Before going to law school, Mocsary earned his M.B.A. from the University of Rochester Simon School of Business and ran a successful management consulting practice. His consulting clients ranged from the Office of the Mayor of the City of New York, to JPMorgan Chase, to the private bank Pictet and Cie in Geneva, Switzerland. Mocsary also holds a B.E. from the Cooper Union Albert Nerken School of Engineering. Professor Mocsary is a co-author of Firearms Law and the Second Amendment: Regulation, Rights, and Policy (Aspen Publishers, 2017), the first casebook on its topic. He has also published in the George Washington Law Review, George Mason Law Review, Fordham Law Review, and other journals. His work has been cited by the Supreme Court of the United States.

Moderated by RonNell Andersen Jones.

The Fordham Debate is named in honor of Professor Jefferson B. Fordham, an outstanding legal scholar and defender of individual and civil rights who joined the University of Utah College of Law faculty in 1972. The annual debate addresses relevant contemporary public policy and legal issues.

For questions contact Miriam (801) 585-3479.

Free parking is available at the Rice-Eccles Stadium. We encourage you to use public transportation to our events. Take TRAX University line to the Stadium stop and walk a half block north. For other public transit options use UTA’s Trip Planner. The law school is on the Red Route for the University’s free campus shuttles (College of Law stop).