The District of Columbia vs Heller Supreme Court Decision
The key takeaway “The Heller decision does not prohibit limits and regulations on who can possess a firearm, what type of firearm they can possess, and where they can carry that firearm.“
The public perception is that an individual right to carry arms (a gun) has been around since the founders wrote the constitution. That perception is simply not true. The Heller decision was decided just a few years ago, in 2008, and as of this writing, the Supreme Court has not heard a new gun related case since 2010.
We should start with the precedent the District of Columbia v. Heller Supreme Court decision set, a key summary of the majority opinion, and a summary of the dissenting opinion.
The decision states, “The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.”
A key point to be noted in the majority decision written by Justice Antonin Scalia has since been ignored by the NRA and hardcore gun rights advocates.
“Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.”
The dissenting opinion delivered by Justice John Paul Stevens stated that the court's judgment was "a strained and unpersuasive reading" which overturned longstanding precedent, and that the court had "bestowed a dramatic upheaval in the law".
Justice Stevens dissent also stated the obvious as explained in my earlier blog “Gun Control & The Second Amendment” that the Second Amendment was notable for the "omission of any statement of purpose related to the right to use firearms for hunting or personal self-defense" which was present in the Declarations of Rights of Pennsylvania and Vermont…the Founders would have made the individual right aspect of the Second Amendment express if that was what was intended; that the "militia" preamble and exact phrase "to keep and bear arms" demands the conclusion that the Second Amendment touches on state militia service only.
The majority in the 5 to 4 District of Columbia v. Heller Supreme Court decision bestowed a right that had previously not existed.
This is not completely uncommon as the court has acquiesced to prevailing public opinion in the past and will do so in the future. How public opinion was shaped on the gun issue is discussed in a future blog post.
What the majority did not do was bestow an unlimited right to possess a firearm. The Heller decision does not prohibit limits and regulations on who can possess a firearm, what type of firearm they can possess, and where they can carry that firearm.
