What is District of Columbia v. Heller?
District of Columbia v. Heller was a case considered by the Supreme Court which involved a constitutional challenge to the District’s tough gun laws (D.C. had a de facto ban on handguns and mandatory safe storage laws for long guns, including shotguns and rifles). The Heller case marked the first time in nearly 70 years that the Supreme Court had considered the meaning of the Second Amendment. The Court decided the case on June 26, 2008.
What does the Second Amendment say?
The text of the amendment reads as follows: “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.” For more than 200 years, federal courts have interpreted this right to be closely tied to service in a state militia. In the 1939 Supreme Court case of U.S. v. Miller, the Court found that it could not guarantee a Second Amendment right to own a firearm that does not have “some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.” Furthermore, the Court spoke of the Second Amendment protecting “military equipment” whose use “could contribute to the common defense.”
Who was behind the District of Columbia v. Heller case?
CATO board member and wealthy libertarian Robert Levy recruited six plaintiffs for a lawsuit challenging D.C.’s gun laws in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in 2003. The District Court dismissed the case—at that time known as Parker v. District of Columbia—but an appellate panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit reversed the decision and found that D.C.’s gun laws violated the Second Amendment. In that ruling, D.C. resident Dick Anthony Heller was the only plaintiff whose case was found to have standing because he had applied for a permit to own a handgun and was denied.
What were the basic arguments on each side in the case?
The appellant, Dick Anthony Heller, claimed a right to possess a “functional firearm” that is readily accessible to be used when necessary for self-defense in the home. Heller’s argument focused on "Whether the Second Amendment guarantees law-abiding, adult individuals a right to keep ordinary, functional firearms, including handguns, in their homes." Heller claimed the Second Amendment provided an individual right to keep and bear arms for a wide range of purposes beyond militia service, including for hunting, self-defense and to defend against our government “should our Nation someday suffer tyranny again.”
The District of Columbia argued that the Second Amendment only protects firearm rights closely tied to service in a well regulated state militia. The District’s argument focused on "Whether the Second Amendment forbids the District of Columbia from banning private possession of handguns while allowing possession of rifles and shotguns." In the District’s view, even if the Second Amendment protects rights independent of militia service, the D.C. Council’s enactment of tough gun laws in 1976 constituted reasonable regulation of firearms in the interest of public safety given the city’s experience with handgun violence.
Why did the Supreme Court take the case?
After D.C.’s gun laws were overturned by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on March 9, 2007, the District appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court of Appeals decision marked the first time in history that a federal appeals court had overturned a gun control law on Second Amendment grounds. The 5th Circuit had previously stated that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms, but hadn’t struck down any law on these grounds. Nonetheless, a split of opinion had developed between the D.C. Circuit and the 5th Circuit and the 11 other appellate circuits, which have held that the Second Amendment created a right related to service in a well regulated militia. Perhaps noting this difference of opinion, the Supreme Court agreed to hear District of Columbia v. Heller on November 20, 2007.
What did the Bush administration have to say?
The U.S. Solicitor General, the administration’s primary advocate before the Supreme Court, filed a brief arguing that the definition of “Arms” in the Court of Appeals decision was too broad and potentially imperiled existing federal gun control laws. The brief recommended that the case be sent back to the lower court for clarification. Vice President Dick Cheney, however, broke with this moderate stance by signing onto a separate brief as President of the Senate that urged the Supreme Court to affirm the Court of Appeals ruling in total.
What did the Supreme Court decide?
In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court departed from over 100 years of judicial precedent and held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess firearms for self-defense purposes unconnected with service in a militia. The Court's ruling struck down the District of Columbia’s ban on handgun possession and its law requiring that trigger locks be affixed to firearms in the home.
However, despite the sweeping tone of the holding, the majority opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia was relatively narrow in scope. Although the Court held that the Second Amendment provides an individual right to gun ownership, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the majority opinion that “the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.” The opinion cited a number of lawful prohibitions on individual gun ownership, including “...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.”
Justice John Paul Stevens and Justice Stephen Breyer each wrote a dissenting opinion in the case. Justice Stevens wrote, "The Second Amendment was adopted to protect the right of the people of each of the several States to maintain a well-regulated militia ... Neither the text of the Amendment nor the arguments advanced by its proponents evidenced the slightest interest in limiting any legislature's authority to regulate private civilian uses of firearms. Specifically, there is no indication that the Framers of the Amendment intended to enshrine the common-law right of self-defense in the Constitution." Added Justice Breyer: "...the District's regulation, which focuses upon the presence of handguns in high-crime urban areas, represents a permissible legislative response to a serious, indeed life-threatening, problem."
What must the District of Columbia do to comply with this decision?
As a result of the Supreme Court's decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, three immediate changes to D.C.'s gun laws are required. First, the city's prohibition on registering new handguns must be repealed. Second, the District has to revise its trigger lock provision to allow an exception for “immediate self-defense” in the home. Finally, modifications must be made to the handgun licensing system for D.C. residents.
The D.C. Council is currently working with the Metropolitan Police Department and Office of the D.C. Attorney General to draft new regulations on firearms ownership. The D.C. Council Chairman, Vincent C. Gray, promised that the District would have “the strictest handgun laws the Constitution allows.”
Where can I read more about the case?
CSGV Executive Director Josh Horwitz has published the following Huffington Post blogs about the Heller case:
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