Kopel is a lifelong registered
Democrat who identifies as
small government libertarian, who voted for
Ralph Nader in 2000. In addition, he voted for
Ron Paul in 1988; and
George W. Bush in 2004 for reasons related to foreign policy. Kopel opposes
gun control and is a benefactor member of the
National Rifle Association of America. His articles on gun control and
gun violence have been cited in the
Opposing Viewpoints Series. In 2003, Kopel wrote in
National Review "Simply put, if not for gun control, Hitler would not have been able to murder 21 million people." In 2008, he contributed an article to the 59th Volume of the
Syracuse Law Review entitled "The Natural Right of Self-Defense: ''Heller's
Lesson for the World". He appeared in FahrenHYPE 9/11, a film that disputes the allegations in Fahrenheit 9/11''. Kopel's Independence Institute received 1.42 million dollars of funding for its activities by the National Rifle Association. Kopel testified before a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on March 26, 2019, that he supports
red flag laws, which empower judges to order the temporary seizure of firearms from persons they deem to be of high threat to themselves or others. In 2008, Kopel appeared before the
United States Supreme Court as part of the team presenting the plaintiff's oral argument in
District of Columbia v. Heller. His Heller amicus brief for a law coalition of law enforcement organizations and district attorneys was cited four times in the Court’s Heller opinions. His brief in
McDonald v. Chicago (2010) was cited by Justice
Samuel Alito's plurality opinion, and twice by Justice
John Paul Stevens's dissent. He has also testified numerous times before Congress and state legislatures, including before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on the Supreme Court nominations of
Elena Kagan and
Sonia Sotomayor. Kopel testified on January 30, 2013, six weeks after the Newtown, Connecticut,
Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, before the
Senate Judiciary Committee on gun violence. One month later, MSNBC.com revealed that Kopel and the Independence Institute had received $108,000 in grants from the National Rifle Association's Civil Rights Defense Fund, and that another witness at the Senate Judiciary hearing,
David T. Hardy, testifying as a private attorney in Tucson, Arizona, had received $67,500 in grants from the same NRA fund in 2011. Kopel was the lead attorney in a May 2013
Federal civil rights lawsuit against the
State of Colorado aimed at blocking several "Democratic gun control measures passed by the state legislature and signed into law by Governor
John Hickenlooper" in March 2013. The
Fox News affiliate station in Denver,
Fox31, and correspondent Eli Stokols in May 2013 revealed that Kopel had received $1.39 million in grant money from the NRA Civil Rights Defense Fund between 2004 and 2011. Fox31 reported Kopel's NRA funding after the Colorado-based Independence Institute filed suit in Colorado challenging the state's gun laws, with Kopel as the lead attorney. Kopel has authored columns in outlets including
The Denver Post,
The Washington Post, the
Los Angeles Times,
The New York Times and
The Wall Street Journal, and articles in law reviews including the
Harvard Law Review,
Yale Law Journal,
Michigan Law Review,
University of Pennsylvania Law Review,
SAIS Review, and the
Brown Journal of World Affairs. ==References==