The Supreme Court Case Of District Of Columbia Vs Heller

In the Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. Heller, the Court analyzed the meaning and extent of the Second Amendment for the first time since 1939. In narrow 5-4 decision penned by Justice that the District of Columbia’s ban on handgun was unconstitutional and thus violates the individual right granted by the Second Amendment. The Justices of the Supreme Court interpreted the Second Amendment as the right of individuals to keep and bear arms, having nothing to do with collective right grant by the service in a state militia. The Court made clear that this right to bear arms has limits, but, as explored in detailed below, the statue of limitations of those limitation remain unclear.
D.C. Gun Laws and Second Amendment Background Information’s
However, the D.C. handgun ban was unlawful because it superfluously infringed on a individual right to bear arms. Heller lawyer in closing of his opening statement finished by stating “We start therefore with a strong presumption that the Second Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to all Americans.” Heller lawyer went on to countered the D.C. militia interpretation, arguing that the Second Amendment did in fact grant citizens the individual right to own gun. Heller lawyer stated “[T]he most natural reading of "keep Arms’ in the Second Amendment is to "have weapons.'” Heller’s lawyers went on to argue there view on the right to bear arms not only as individual right to self-defense, but also as an fundamental right preserved in the Second Amendment and dating back to the foundation of the English Bill of Rights. This argument was centered around the notion “original intent,” in which the framers intended the right for individuals to bear arms under the
Dissents which lack the enforcement of law, however they are often informative in examining the arguments of a case. Justice Stevens centered his focus on the collective understanding of the Second Amendment. In his dissent, he stated that the Second Amendment did not grant the individual the right to firearms for non-military purposes. Justice Stevens believed that his fellow justices had wrongly passed over the first part of the Amendment: “A well regulated Militia.” He quoted that the term “bear arms” is defined as “to serve as a soldier or to do military service.,” he back this notion up by citing the Oxford English Dictionarywhich mirrored his