The Second Amendment, which states, in its entirety, “The right to bear arms shall not be infringed,” is why America remains one of the only developed countries with such loose gun control laws. Despite its controversy and looming role in shaping partisan identity and its influence over American society, from 1939 through to 2008, the Supreme Court somehow managed to avoid hearing any cases pertaining to it, until it heard D.C. v. Heller in 2008.
Just like any somewhat controversial issue, the issue of gun control has divided itself over partisan lines and despite gun violence taking the lives of thousands hardly anything has been done about it, even if mass shootings have been front and center over the media lately. This case, District of Columbia v. Heller, was the first time in over 70 years that the Supreme Court had touched the Second Amendment.
In 2002, Robert Levy, a member of the right-wing Cato Institute decided to personally finance a case to strengthen the rights for allowing Americans to own guns. Levy found six other residents of Washington, D.C., including Dick Heller, who bound together to sue the district over a local law, the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975, which banned Washington residents from owning handguns and other types of firearms, as well as requiring all other firearms to be unloaded or disassembled when stored at home. The federal district is known for having one of the strictest gun control laws in the country.
In February 2003, the six residents filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. They claimed that the Firearms Control Regulations Act was unconstitutional and was in violation of the Second Amendment’s protections of arm-bearing. The District Court dismissed the lawsuit, refusing to give the plaintiffs an injunction.
The plaintiffs appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which reversed the dismissal. The court concluded that the only resident of the six who had standing to file the suit was Heller, who had been denied a handgun permit by the local government. The other residents simply wanted to be able to have a gun for various reasons.
Because the Second Amendment protects the “right to bear arms,” the court found that, since handguns are considered “arms,” they could not be banned by the district. Moreover, the court also found that the use of firearms for activities such as self-defense and hunting helped to protect the civilian militia, and the protections the amendment affords are not limited only to those serving in the militia. The court thus struck down the handgun ban and the section that requires arms to be kept unloaded or disassembled. In defense, the district tried to argue that a self-defense exception was implied in the law, but the court rejected this view.
The district appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which granted a writ of certiorari on Nov. 20, 2007. As this was the first time since 1939 the court had agreed to hear a case on the Second Amendment, it garnered considerable attention nationwide. Many groups, which worked both for and against gun control signed on to briefs arguing in favor of their viewpoints. The Department of Justice signed a brief asking that the case be remanded, while many Republican members of Congress asked for the case to be affirmed.
Arguments were heard on March 18, 2008, and the Supreme Court made its decision on June 26, 2008. It ruled 5-4 in favor of Heller, affirming the lower court’s decision to void some provisions of the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975. It was a case decided upon ideology lines: the five conservative justices voted in favor of Heller, while the four liberals voted against him.
The court held that the “Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.” It found that the total ban on handgun possession within homes unconstitutional because it would go against the self-defense purpose of the amendment and “amounts to a prohibition on an entire class of ‘arms’ that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense.”
However, it found that the Second Amendment right to bear arms is not unlimited. Not every person can carry around any weapon they want in whatever manner they wish for whatever purpose they want. For instance, bans on concealed weapons are legal, as are bans on allowing felons to own guns. Therefore, many gun control laws, such as firearm registration and assault weapons bans are constitutional, and remain in force in the district to this day.
In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens called the majority judgment a “strained and unpersuasive reading” and “bestowed a dramatic upheaval in the law,” arguing that the right to bear arms applies only to those in militia service and many gun control laws remain constitutional.
Some called out the conservative justices for judicial activism, which is when a judge bases a judgment from their personal views rather than from a sound interpretation of the law.
Due to the nature of the decision, D.C. v. Heller remains controversial to this day, and it absolutely did not put the issue of gun control to rest. The debate surrounding gun control is alive and well, and every time there is a major shooting, the issue becomes front and center once again.
Check out the SCOTUS Cases page for more on the Supreme Court.