Stephen P. Halbrook

Senior Legal Advisor / Second Amendment Scholarship Specialist

Stephen P. Halbrook received his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center and Ph.D. in social philosophy from Florida State University. In practice since 1978, he has extensive knowledge and experience in litigating cases involving the Second Amendment and other constitutional law issues. He argued and won three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court – Printz v. United States, United States v. Thompson/Center Arms Company, and Castillo v. United States.  He represented a majority of members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives as amici curiae in District of Columbia v. Heller, and represented the NRA in its victory in McDonald v. Chicago. 

Halbrook has litigated a number of challenges to “assault weapon” bans in California, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, and New York.  He has also consulted with manufacturers and, in some cases, conducted litigation contesting ATF’s classifications of semiautomatics as machineguns, pistols with arm braces as short-barreled rifles, and muzzle brakes as silencers. 

Halbrook has testified before various committees of the U.S. Congress on the Second Amendment, firearm law issues, Supreme Court nominees, and Attorney General nominee.  They include the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Subcommittee on Crime of the House Judiciary Committee, Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and House Committee on the District of Columbia.

Halbrook regularly teaches continuing legal education classes to lawyers and lectures at various law schools.  He has taught legal and political philosophy at George Mason University, Howard University, and Tuskegee University.  He is currently is a Senior Fellow with the Independent Institute. 

A contributor to numerous scholarly volumes, he is the author of the books Gun Control in Nazi-Occupied France: Tyranny and Resistance; Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and “Enemies of the State”; The Founders’ Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms; That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right; A Right to Bear Arms; Firearms Law Deskbook: Federal and State Criminal Practice; Securing Civil Rights: Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Right to Bear Arms: State and Federal Bills of Rights and Constitutional Guarantees; The Swiss and the Nazis; and Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II. 

You can view more information on Stephen Halbrook here.