Don Bernard Kates Jr., (January 26, 1941 – November 1, 2016) was an American lawyer and research fellow with The Independent Institute in Oakland, California who focused on promoting gun rights.
As a civil liberties lawyer he was retained by the National Rifle Association of America to represent gun owners attacking the constitutionality of certain firearms laws.
Kates grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and attended Reed College and Yale Law School.
He was author of the entry on the Second Amendment in M. Levy & K. Karst, The Encyclopedia of the American Constitution; "Firearms and Violence: Old Premises, Current Evidence," in T. Gurr (ed.
), Violence in America (1989); and "Precautionary Handgun Ownership: Reasonable Choice or Dangerous Delusion," B. Danto (ed.