American Enlightenment Project
Change the Gun Debate,
End the Gun Violence Epidemic.
The Tragic Toll of Gun Violence
800,000 Americans have died from gun violence since 2008, after guesswork by both sides of the gun debate and the Supreme Court triggered a gun epidemic, surpassing the Civil War carnage sparked by an earlier legal travesty, Dred Scott.
Join us in addressing the urgent issue of gun violence in America. Together, we can make a real change.
Our Mission
American Enlightenment Project is the only organization dedicated to ending the epidemic by a legal challenge to the Supreme Court decision that created it with a new constitutional right to own a gun, District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), and correcting all the conjecture and myth behind it.
A Dangerous Freedom
The historian Heller cited called that right a “dangerous freedom” that “for obvious reasons few governments ever granted.” Ours never did: courts held the Second Amendment “solely protects the right of the states to keep and maintain armed militia” in the 20th century—when there were no shooter drills in kindergarten or daily mass shootings. That is, until Heller rewrote it:
A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. — U.S. Const. amend. II (1791)
A disciplined citizens’ militia, being necessary to freedom, the right to guns commonly used in the home for self-defense, shall not be abridged. — District of Columbia v. Heller (2008)
By 2015, after Heller was extended in 2010 to strike down bans nationwide on handguns in the home, in McDonald v. Chicago, guns and gun violence surged in tandem to a declared ‘Gun Epidemic.’
By 2024, after Heller’s further expansion in 2022 to allow handguns in public, in N.Y.S. Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, gun violence had become a ‘Public Health Crisis.’
Questioning Heller
Tensions are rising. In Bruen, Justice Alito wrote: “it is hard to see what legitimate purpose can be served by” considering gun violence since Heller. “Why, for example, does the dissent think it relevant to recount the mass shootings that have occurred in recent years?” — over 7,200 per Mass Shooting Tracker since 2013, and counting.
But during oral argument over whether to extend Heller to public carry—joyriding with pistols as Justice Breyer put it—Justice Barrett asked a critical question: “Do you think Heller was rightly decided?” It has yet to be briefed and answered.
The Power of a Legal Brief
One brief can make all the difference. The Court this term delivered a blow to the Trump administration, blocking deployment of the National Guard to Chicago based on one scholar’s brief clarifying that “regular forces” in a militia statute meant regular military forces, not law enforcement as both sides argued. This single brief—correcting superficial readings—forced troop withdrawals from other American cities and averted civil unrest nationwide.
Our Strategic Change
It is time to correct the similarly superficial readings of the Second Amendment presented in Heller—each side calling the other’s absurd—and persuade the Court to overturn it. That really is the only way to restore common-sense laws Heller took “off the table” and end this crisis.
Increased Urgency
The Court is poised to extend Heller again to allow joyriding with AR-15s, whose ballistic impact a police chief described as “sickening and unacceptable.” Last term, the Court paused review of assault rifle bans pending further lower court development. Justices Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch argued it was “difficult to see” how the states could ban AR-15s, the most popular rifle in America, under Heller’s common use test. Justice Kavanaugh, who reached that conclusion in a prior case, expects the issue will be taken up “soon.”
Increasingly perilous issues stemming from Heller—which got the Second Amendment all wrong—demand a course change, not just by the Court but both sides of the gun debate.
Join Us in our Fight
At a time when America is desperate for solutions to gun violence, AEP offers a strategic challenge to the flawed reasoning that has led to our current gun crisis.
Will you join us? We need your help to mount court challenges that will undo Heller and end the gun epidemic.
Get Involved
Your support can help restore a safer future for us all.
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