Supreme Court to determine scope of 2nd Amendment
30 years ago, the District of Colombia (D.C.) passed one of the nation's strictest gun control laws. Until recently, this law remained unchallenged and a part of the D.C. area's attempt to reign in crime. While crime rates have fallen, they have dropped at the cost of civil liberties. This law bans all private handgun ownership. While private citizens may own rifles they must remain in the home, unloaded, and either disassembled or with a trigger lock in place. Using the ambiguity in the Second Amendment, the District claims that the right to bear arms is solely for the state militia.
The D.C. law has banned private ownership of handguns from anyone who is not part of the police, National Guard, or connected to the military. While most states and the federal government have some restrictions weapon ownership, the extent of the gun ban in D.C. far exceed anything in any other city or state considers necessary and reasonable to ensure public safety.
The Second Amendment as one remembers it, and as the NRA presents it, is fairly straight forward. Nevertheless, this apparently straight forward amendment can run aground very quickly. The wording to the Second Amendment leaves open the possibility that the right to bear arms is only extended to state militias, in which case it may not apply at all to a private citizen in any state, and not at all to the District of Colombia (which is not part of any state). In full, the Second Amendment reads: "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."
The Supreme Court recently announced that it will decide the constitutional scope of the "the right to bear arms," in the spring of 2008, with a decision expected by July, 2008, whether there is a private right to bear arms.
The Supreme Court has decided to hear the case to answer the question of whether a citizen not affiliated with a state-run militia may keep handguns in his or her home. While the idea of a state militia may seem odd, it is the constitutional intent that the case hangs onto. The Second Amendment grants that private gun ownership is necessary in relation to these militias. The historical context is that the militia was comprised of citizen Minute Men who would rally for defensive purposes using their own firearms before and during the Revolutionary War.
As the Supreme Court has only heard one other Second Amendment case, United States v. Miller in 1939. Miller still left open the issue of whether gun ownership is reserved for a single explicit group or the population at large. The District of Columbia claims that this right is specifically for the militia, so its law which does not infringe on the rights of police, National Guard, or military personal.
A federal guard named Dick Anthony Heller initiated the case that the Supreme Court will review shortly. He wanted to keep a handgun in his home in D.C. for personal safety reasons and is asking the Court to resolve confusion over the Second Amendment language. Heller claims this right is guaranteed to any responsible adult citizen.
Mr. Heller's case is fairly straightforward and the ground he is arguing is on the smallest possible grounds. He claims to possess nothing more than the right of a private citizen to have a functioning gun for personal use. Because the District still has a high crime rate, as a private citizen he wishes to be able to have a gun for protection and thinks that a handgun should be an option. Furthermore under Miller, the "militia" might reasonably be interpreted as any able-bodied person who could be called up.
The case comes down to whether private citizens are protected by the Second Amendment and what the definition of a ‘state militia' is. If the court rules if favor of Heller, an individual's right to bear and arms would not be irrevocable. For, according to the D.C. Circuit's ruling, the Second Amendment still allows the government to enforce "reasonable regulations" of firearms. On the other hand, if the court decides that the Second Amendment only relates to state militias and a state militia is defined as a formal body of enforcement officers such as the army or police, then the private citizen's right to bear arms as it is commonly understood will likely disappear.