Today, in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller, the United States Supreme Court departed from over 100 years of earlier judicial decisions and held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess firearms for self-defense purposes unconnected with service in a militia. Despite the sweeping tone of the holding, the majority opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia is relatively narrow in scope, and leaves more questions open than it answers.

Washington, DC - Following yesterday’s mass shooting at Northern Illinois University which left six dead, including the shooter, and 16 wounded, America’s leading national gun violence prevention organizations, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, and the Violence Policy Center, issued the following joint statement.

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) would like to commend Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) and Representative Xavier Becerra (D-CA) for introducing comprehensive ballistics identification legislation in the U.S. Congress. Their respective bills, S. 2605 and H.R. 5266, would mandate manufacturer "microstamping" of all new semiautomatic handguns sold in the United States starting in 2010.

The Bush Administration’s new incoming Secretary of Veterans Affairs, James Peake, will almost immediately be faced with implementing a program to allow veterans currently prohibited from buying guns for mental health reasons to regain the ability to legally acquire firearms. The just-passed “NICS Improvement Act” requires the Department of Veterans Affairs to establish a “relief from disability” program to allow persons now prohibited from possessing a firearm because they have “been adjudicated as a mental defective” or “committed to a mental institution” to apply to have their bar on firearms possession removed. The Secretary will have only 120 days to implement the new program. More than 116,000 veterans are currently eligible to apply.

Leading national gun violence prevention organizations today warned that a bill intended to improve the records available to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS)—the national system used to screen gun buyers—has been hijacked by the gun lobby and would now do far more harm than good.