Janine Turner, Cathy Gillespie, and Constituting America’s Student Ambassadors, Tova Love Kaplan and Dakare Chatman, chat with Constitutional experts on hot-topic issues via Zoom!
Part 4 of our “Bill of Rights” series: Second Amendment
Special Guest: Professor David Kopel
Thank You To Our Sponsors Mr. and Mrs. George Waller
Dave Kopel is Research Director of the Independence Institute; an Adjunct Scholar with the Cato Institute, in Washington; and adjunct Professor of Advanced Constitutional Law at the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law. His website is www.davekopel.org. He is a regular panelist on Colorado Public Television’s “Colorado Inside Out”, and a columnist for the Reason Magazine on the Volokh Conspiracy law blog.
Kopel writes on constitutional law, criminal justice, civil rights, firearms policy, international affairs, technology, politics, environmental policy, and the media. He is the author of 17 books, hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles, and over 100 scholarly journal articles. His newspaper articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. Among his journal publications are articles in journals from Yale, Harvard, NYU, the University of Michigan, Johns Hopkins, Notre Dame, and the University of Pennsylvania. His briefs have been cited by U.S. Supreme Court Justices Alito, Breyer, and Stevens, and his research has been cited by ten state Supreme Court cases, ten federal Circuit Court of Appeals cases, and in over 600 law review articles. The Seventh Circuit described his scholarship as a correct model of “originalist interpretive method as applied to the Second Amendment.”
Kopel’s book The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy: Should America Adopt the Gun Controls of Other Democracies? was named book of the year by the American Society of Criminology, Division of International Criminology. Before joining the Independence Institute, Kopel 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. He holds a J.D. magna cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School, and a B.A. in History with honors from Brown University.
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Tuesday, October 27 – 2cnd Amendment
Tuesday, November 10 – 3rd Amendment
Tuesday, November 17 – 4th Amendment
Tuesday, November 24 – 5th Amendment
Tuesday, December 1 – 6th, 7th, 8th Amendments
Tuesday, December 8 – 9th & 10th Amendments
Tuesday, December 15 – Passing the Bill Of Rights, James Madison, Influences & Inspirations
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‘Constitutional Chats’ Hosts
Janine Turner
Actress Janine Turner is famous for her role as Maggie O’Connell in televisions’ Northern Exposure. She is the Founder and Co-President of Constituting America which launched in 2010. She is still acting but she is also actively teaching kids about the U.S. Constitution given over 540 speeches to classrooms across the country.
Cathy Gillespie
Cathy Gillespie is the co-president of Constituting America and one of 16 private citizens serving on the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, helping organize the celebration of our country’s 250th birthday in 2026! She is a former Congressional Chief of Staff and former Commissioner of the White House Fellows Commission.
Tova Love Kaplan
Tova Love Kaplan is sixteen years old and lives in Chicago, Illinois. She currently serves as the National Youth Director for Constituting America, and runs the National Youth Advisory Council. She is a three-time winner of the “We the Future” contest in the Entrepreneurial (where she created a marketing plan), PSA (entitled “Know Your Rights. Read The Constitution”) and STEM (where she created an app). She is passionate about educating and empowering young people to use their constitutional rights!
Dakare Chatman
Constituting America Student Ambassador Dakare Chatman is 18 years old, and is currently a junior, full-time college student in South Carolina. He has won Constituting America’s We The Future Contest twice, once for best PSA where he reminded viewers the Constitution is “An American Thing, So Know It” and twice for his short film “Man On The Street.” He is also actively involved in our National Youth Advisory Board. He’s a working actor seen most recently in HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones and on April 15 in Netflix’s: Outer Banks. Dakare wishes to be an actor, but also a politician. But says you must be an actor to be a politician.