Justices Rule for Individual Gun Rights
By DAVID STOUT
Published: June 27, 2008
WA****NGTON The Supreme Court declared for
the first time on Thursday that the Constitution
protects an individualıs right to have a gun, not just
the right of the states to maintain militias.
Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in the
5-to-4 decision, said the Constitution does not allow
³the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used
for self-defence in the home.² In so declaring, the
majority found that a gun-control law in the nationıs
capital went too far in making it nearly impossible to
own a handgun.
The decision upheld a federal appeals court ruling
that the District of Columbiaıs gun law, one of the
strictest in the country, went beyond constitutional
limits. Not only did the 1976 law make it practically
impossible for an individual to legally possess a
handgun in the District, but it spelled out rules for
the storage of rifles and shotguns.
But the long-awaited decision did not necessarily
mean that gun laws from coast to coast, many of
them far less restrictive than Wa****ngtonıs, would
be swept aside.
Joining Justice Scalia were Chief Justice John G.
Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Anthony
M. Kennedy and Samuel A. Alito Jr.
A dissent by Justice John Paul Stevens asserted that the
majority ³would have us believe that over 200 years
ago, the framers made a choice to limit the tools
available to elected officials wi****ng to regulate civilian
uses of weapons.² Joining him were Justices David H.
Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.
The high courtıs ruling was the first since 1939 to deal
with the scope of the Second Amendment, and the first
ever to directly address the meaning of the
amendmentıs ambiguous, comma-laden text: ³A 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.²
The court concluded that the amendment protects an
individual right to bear arms, but it also said that the
right is not absolute, opening the door for more fights
in the future. Lawmakers across the country may look
to the decision as a blueprint for writing new
legislation to satisfy the demands of constituents who
say there is too much regulation of firearms now, or
too little, depending on the sentiments in their regions.
In March 2007, Wa****ngton city officials expressed
disappointment and outrage when the United States
Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
overturned the city ordinance. The Supreme Court
ruling is sure to prompt work on a new ordinance that
can withstand high court scrutiny.
The last time the Supreme Court weighed a case
involving the Second Amendment, in 1939, it decided
a narrower question, finding that the Constitution did
not protect any right to possess a specific type of
firearm, the sawed-off shotgun.
By contrast, the issues in the District of Columbia case
seemed much more ³mainstream,² if that term can be
used in reference to gun-control issues. When the
justices announced on Nov. 20 that they were accepting
the case of District of Columbia v. Heller, No. 07-290,
they indicated that they would go to the heart of the
long debate.
The question, they said, is whether the districtıs
restrictions on firearms ³violate the Second Amendment
rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any
state-regulated militia but who wish to keep handguns
and other firearms for private use in their homes.²
Dick Anthony Heller, a security guard who carries a
handgun for his job protecting federal judiciary offices,
challenged the District of Columbiaıs law after his
request for a license to keep his gun at home was
rejected.
When the case was argued before the justices on March
18, Mr. Hellerıs lawyer, Alan Gura, did not assert that
the Second Amendment precluded any kind of ban
related to gun possession. He said that a ban on the
****pment of machine guns and sawed-off shotguns
would be acceptable, and in answer to a question from
the justices, so, too, might be a prohibition on guns in
schools. Some of the justices signalled during
arguments that they thought the Districtıs near-total
ban on handguns went too far.
A legislature ³has a great deal of leeway in regulating
firearms,² Mr. Gura argued, but not to the extent of
virtually banning them in homes.
The Wa****ngton law not only established high barriers
to the private possession of handguns, it also required
that rifles and shotguns be kept either in a disassembled
state or under a trigger lock.
Walter Dellinger, the lawyer who argued for the district
on March 18, asserted that ³the people² and ³the militia²
were essentially the same, and that the Second
Amendment gave people the right to bear arms only in
connection with their militia service.
Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, representing the
federal government, argued on behalf of the
individual-rights position, which has been the Bush
administrationıs policy. But he said that the appeals
court had also gone too far in overturning the ordinance
and that the right to bear arms was always subject to
³reasonable regulations.²
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