The US Supreme Court has just ruled (Thursday 6/26/08) that the Washington DC gun ban is unconstitutional. The majority in the 5-4 ruling definitively holds that individuals have a right to own firearms.
The decision explicitly does not affect laws that prohibit felons or mental incompetents from owning guns, or which restrict the presence of guns within an arbitrary distance of a school or in government buildings.
Justice Anton Scalia writes “The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditional lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.” With that as the basis, the ruling finds the District Of Columbia ban on handgun possession unconstitutional, as well as the city’s requirement that long guns in the home be stored disassembled or with trigger locks that — as gun rights supporters have maintained since Sarah Brady first thought of a trigger lock — render the weapon useless for self defense.
For those who hold the Libertarian view of firearms, there is only one real problem with today’s decision: it specifically does not address the issue of firearms licensing, therefore upholding Washington DC’s licensing scheme. We hope the rest of this ruling will force the city to amend its licensing law to be “shall issue” instead of “may issue” — that is, change it so it no longer will be a hidden form of gun prohibition. There is a school of thought particularly expounded by the gun rights group Jews For The Preservation Of Firearms Ownership (JPFO) that gun licensing always is followed by gun confiscation.
Because Washington DC is a wholly owned subsidiary of the federal government, it seems that today’s ruling does not “incorporate” the Second Amendment under the 14th Amendment, which would have made gun rights apply uniformly to the states. However, it will take a while to work through the 157 page decision to determine all of the details.
District Of Columbia v. Heller is every bit the landmark decision that gun rights supporters have hoped for.
