Front Sight, Press

 

By Greg Stohr

Nov. 20 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether individuals have a constitutional right to own firearms, agreeing to hear arguments on the District of Columbia’s decades-old handgun ban.

A ruling against Washington would give gun-rights advocates a long-sought legal victory and raise question about weapons restrictions in New York, Chicago and other cities. The high court has never directly said whether the Constitution’s Second Amendment covers people who don’t belong to a state-run militia.

The justices will review a federal appeals court decision that struck down Washington’s ban and said the Second Amendment protects individuals against unreasonable restrictions on their right to own firearms. The decision marked the first time a federal appeals court had ever voided a law on Second Amendment grounds.

“Having a handgun, whether in the home or outside it, comes at the expense of the safety of those who may be victims,'’ Washington and its mayor, Adrian Fenty, argued in the appeal. “Whatever right the Second Amendment guarantees, it does not require the district to stand by while its citizens die.'’

Washington’s 31-year-old gun law, perhaps the strictest in the nation, bars most residents from owning handguns and requires all legally owned firearms to be kept unloaded and either disassembled or under trigger lock. Six district residents challenged the law, some saying they want to keep handguns in their homes for self-defense purposes.

The restrictions “amount to a complete prohibition of all functional firearms within the home,'’ lawyers for the residents argued. “The challenged laws are thus an absolute negation of the people’s right to keep arms…'’  Source

From SCOTUS Blog:

Some observers who read the Court’s order closely may suggest that the Court is already inclined toward an “individual rights” interpretation of the Second Amendment. That is because the order asks whether the three provisions of the D.C. gun control law violate “the Second Amendment rights of individuals.” But that phrasing may reveal very little about whether the Amendment embraces an individual right to have a gun for private use.  Only individuals, of course, would be serving in the militia, and there is no doubt that the Second Amendment provides those individuals a right to have a gun for that type of service.  The question the Court will be deciding is, if there are individuals who want to keep pistols for use at home, does the Second Amendment guarantee them that right.  Just because the Second Amendment protects some individual right does not settle the nature of that right.  Source

Breaking News: WE WON

See Also:

The Militia, Now and Then

DC Circuit Court Rules on Second Amendment

Court agrees to rule on gun case on SCOTUS Blog

Fred Thompson Commentary on DC Gun Ban Case

Anti-Gun Reactions

Brady Gang Charges ‘Judicial Activism’