Supreme Court To Hear DC Gun Ban Case
11.20.07
The Supreme Court announced today that it will decide whether the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns violates the Constitution, a choice that will put the justices at the center of the controversy over the meaning of the Second Amendment for the first time in nearly 70 years.
The court’s decision could have broad implications for gun-control measures locally and across the country, and will raise a hotly contested political issue just in time for the 2008 elections.
The court will hear the case after the first of the year. A decision likely would come before it adjourns at the end of June.
For years, legal scholars, historians and grammarians have debated the meaning of the amendment because of its enigmatic wording and odd punctuation:
“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.”
Gun rights proponents say the words guarantee the right of an individual to possess firearms. Gun-control supporters say it conveys only a civic or “collective” right to own guns as part of service in an organized military organization.
The court’s last examination of the amendment was in 1939, when it ruled in United States v. Miller that a sawed-off shotgun transported across state lines by a bootlegger was not what the amendment’s authors had in mind when they were protecting arms needed for military service.
Since then, almost all of the nation’s courts of appeal have read the ruling to mean the amendment conveys only a collective right to gun ownership. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit broke ranks last spring, becoming the first to strike down a gun-control law on Second Amendment grounds.
A panel of three Republican-appointed judges voted 2-1 that the amendment “protects an individual right to keep and bear arms” and that “once it is determined — as we have done — that handguns are ‘Arms’ referred to in the Second Amendment, it is not open to the District to ban them.”
The District law, enacted in 1976, soon after the city won home rule, is one of the toughest in the nation. It prohibits residents from registering and possessing handguns in almost all circumstances. The District also requires that rifles and other long guns kept in the home be unloaded and disassembled or outfitted with trigger locks. The court struck down that law as well, saying it rendered the right to possess such a weapon for self-defense virtually useless.
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It is unusual that both the losing party and the winners of that decision asked the court to consider the case. But Robert A. Levy, a wealthy entrepreneur and lawyer who is also a scholar at the libertarian Cato Institute, has worked for years to bring the matter to the Supreme Court.
He and others, including co-counsel Clark M. Neily III and Alan Gura, assembled six D.C. residents to challenge the District ban. Their idea was to present the courts with law-abiding plaintiffs who wanted the weapons for self-defense rather than people appealing criminal convictions for possessing weapons.
A federal district judge ruled against the residents, but the appeals court overturned that decision in a strongly worded opinion written by conservative Senior Judge Laurence H. Silberman.
The District argued in its petition to the Supreme Court that the decision “drastically departs from the mainstream of American jurisprudence.”
The petition filed by District Attorney General Linda Singer said the appeals court was wrong for three reasons: because it recognized an individual rather than collective right; because the Second Amendment serves as a restriction only on federal interference with state-regulated militias and state-recognized gun rights; and because the District is within its rights to protect its citizens by banning a certain type of gun.
“It is eminently reasonable to permit private ownership of other types of weapons, including shotguns and rifles, but ban the easily concealed and uniquely dangerous modern handgun,” said the petition. “Whatever right the Second Amendment guarantees, it does not require the District to stand by while its citizens die.”
This kinda scares me.
# November 20th, 2007 at 12:21 pmhow about giving DC representative government along with the right to bear arms? 600000 people are currently disenfranchised because of where they live.
# November 22nd, 2007 at 7:41 pmFirst, I’m not ready to break out any champagne and party poppers just because the SCOTUS has decided to the D.C. vs Heller case. Let me give you some of my thoughts on this.
1. It’s is likely that the SCOTUS could find in favor of an “Individual Rights” model but the SCOTUS seems to alway’s use interpretations that include certain verbage that alway’s leave their findings open to abuse.
Such as: SCOTUS will most likely insert some form of “reasonable restrictions” verbage into there finding even if they plainly spell out an “Individual rights” model and that D.C. has clearly violated the constitution. What does this mean if “reasonable restrictions” or “reasonable fro the public safety” type of language is present in the final ruling ?
Let me tell you: It effectively changes nothing, or for that matter gives the pro gun control advocates the ability to see only “reasonable” in their eyes as to simply continue to violate the constitution in the name “public safety” In other words, it would be reasonable for one Mayor to install a handgun prohibition under the “reasonable” language as for the protection of public safety. What would be the difference from now, especially in D.C. ??
The difference would be that the precedent is now set by the highest court of the land, not a state supreme court. It would allow unconstitutional prohibitions on certain firearms to be challenged in the higher court with a stronger precedent than just a state supreme court.
After all, the SCOTUS is the law of the land, even if you believe that they only review and rule on constitutional issues before them.
I’m not crossing my fingers and I’m not putting any champagne on ice just yet unless the SCOTUS inserts language that specifically addresses a broad range of firearms and pistols that should be available to all law abiding Americans. I don’t see this happening, but I’ll cross my fingers in the mean time.
# November 25th, 2007 at 3:20 pmI would like to add that with the likely hood of a Clinton won the Oval Office that even with favorable finding by the SCOTUS that the administration is and will consider another assault weapons ban. Especially if Rep Carolyn McCarthy is still pounding the table with her HR:1022 proposal.
Was it considered unconstitutional the first time ? For me it was a direct infringement of the right to keep and bear arms for others it was a comprimise based on what those “liberals” saw as banning only firearms that had little if any sporting purpose. Geee, where does it say in the any of the Federalist Papers anything about sport shooting ? If you do your reading you’ll find that Jefferson himself spent alot of time thinking about the firearm as having more prudent purpose than games that included a ball or riding a horse. It was apparent at the time that he meant for all able bodied men to take up arms, train with them and be ready to stand with the militia if now be the militia.
Imagine this for a few moments. Liberals will, in the event of natural disasters, throw out the “our National Guard is in Iraq, where left short handed” Hmmmmmm, scratches head, and thinks for a moment. Pondering this…………..maybe each able bodied man with a semi automatic rifle and or shotgun and pistol could ba called on to assist with natural disasters if you’d hadn’t taken all of our firearms from us !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For the liberal fucks, I’d tell them to get out of their hybrids, take up a shovel and start putting out those fires.
Just a thought.
# November 25th, 2007 at 3:32 pmWashington political elites scar me. I just wish… hear me out, the framers of the Constitution would have at least made an all time mandate of national security to let Boyscouts and Catholic school girls to carry firearms anytime any place!
# November 25th, 2007 at 10:24 pmI don’t know how much more specific they could have gotten: “the right of the PEOPLE.” Yea, not just the militia, not just the states, not the National Guard, but the people, individuals, everyone.
Leave it to the SCOTUS to make a simple issue more complicated than it has to be.
# November 27th, 2007 at 12:08 am