Text, Typos, and the Right to Bear Arms
Obamacare and the Second Amendment
King v. Burwell begins at 3:35
Henderson v. United States begins at 28:35
King v. Burwell, one of the many legal challenges to Obamacare, raises a host of questions about the role of the courts, statutory interpretation, and the future of health care policy. The question before the Court is whether the IRS may extend tax-credit subsidies to individuals who purchase insurance coverage through the federal exchange despite the plain meaning of the Affordable Care Act’s text limiting those subsidies to state-run exchanges.
Dr. John C. Eastman is joined by John Davidson, Director of the Center for Health Care Policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and Ilya Shapiro, Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute, to discuss the policy considerations and underlying constitutional questions raised by the case.
Dr. Eastman then speaks with C.D. Michel, a leading authority on firearms law at the state and federal levels for over 20 years, about the Second Amendment issues raised by Henderson v. United States.
In that case, the Court considers the case of Tony Henderson, a former Border Patrol agent who was convicted of distributing marijuana. Soon after his arrest in 2006, Mr. Henderson surrendered 19 personal firearms to the FBI as a condition of his release while his case was pending. After his conviction, the FBI refused to return the firearms to Mr. Henderson or even relinquish control to a third party to whom Mr. Henderson sold the firearms. The question before the Court is whether all of Mr. Henderson's property interests in his firearms ceased due to his felony conviction.
