I
N THE INSULAR WORLD of gun
rights groups, Alan Gottlieb
is a man on the make. Over
the past five years, his Bellevue, Wash.-based nonprofit,
the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), has raced to expand
gun rights, building on one of the
most significant court rulings in
decades. Now, Gottlieb is hoping to
open the legal floodgates by litigating dozens of cases nationwide.
The December shooting at
Sandy Hook Elementary School in
Newtown, Conn., galvanized the
public in support of gun control
measures, but so far, the national
conversation has revolved alm ost
entirely around legislation. Many
of the most significant changes to
U.S. firearms law today are happening not in Congress, however,
but in the courts.
Much of the SAF’s reputation
in the courtroom can be attributed to a Northern Virginia-based
litigator, Alan Gura, who is best
known for successfully arguing District of Columbia v. Heller
before the Supreme Court. That
landmark 2008 decision held that
the Second Amendment protects
the right of the individual, not just
the state militia, to possess a gun.
Gura and Gottlieb teamed up
after the Heller victory and filed
more than 40 lawsuits, quickly
establishing the SAF as a prolific
player in Second Amendment liti-
“IF THE SECOND AMENDMENT
FOUNDATION MAKES A MISTAKE
AT THIS STAGE, IT CAN STYMIE
PROTECTIONS FOR GUN OWNERS
FOR YEARS TO COME.”
gation. In 2010, the duo scored a
major win with a case they had
initiated, McDonald v. Chicago,
which extended the Heller decision to cover the states. In doing
so, the Supreme Court overturned
the Windy City’s handgun ban, on
the books for 28 years.
While the political world obsesses over the legislative muscle
of the National Rifle Association,
the outcome of the SAF’s lawsuits