This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, September 19th, 2011.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The right to keep them bear arms like other rights doesn't stop at the state line but just how far does it

extend now that states must begin to more fully recognize the rights enshrined

in the Second Amendment. Cato Institute Associate Policy

analyst Dave Kopel comments.

Years ago it was popular for people who supported gun control

to say, well, we should treat guns like we treat cars.

They're dangerous products, potentially, in the wrong hands.

But around that time, Jacob Salem pointed out to me in an article he said well if we take

that idea seriously it means that you can take your gun into all 50 states and if

you keep your gun on your property you don't have to license it or register it in any way.

That's exactly right. I think the guns as cars theory, which I wrote about, some in an article in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review

would probably be the biggest gun decontrol measure in American history.

And I think the car analogy is of course is apt when in public places

and I think it's it's most legislators legislators legislators have said that it's reasonable when you're taking a gun

onto a public place like walking down the sidewalk, that there can be a process for licensing. And that's what most of the states in this country have is a

as with a driver's license a procedure for law-abiding people with a good record

to obtain a permit based on objective criteria.

So what is the case for this, the federal government setting some rules here?

The 14th Amendment is the basis for that. The 14th Amendment of course was enacted to say we need to change some of the state federal balance in our Constitution because the old balance ended up with a civil war and the root cause of the civil war was

violations of the rights of national citizenship.

...