June 26 (Bloomberg) -- A divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution protects individual gun rights, striking down the District of Columbia's handgun ban and raising election- year questions about weapons restrictions elsewhere.
The 5-4 ruling resolves a constitutional question that had lurked for two centuries: whether the Second Amendment covers people who aren't affiliated with a state-run militia.
``The enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table,'' Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority. ``These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home.''
Scalia said the ruling doesn't cast doubt on concealed weapons bans or laws barring handgun possession by convicted felons and the mentally ill. Still, the decision may make gun restrictions in Chicago, New York City and other cities more vulnerable to legal challenges.
The court divided along now-familiar grounds, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy joining Scalia. Justices John Paul Stevens, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter dissented, and Stevens read from his dissent on the bench.
``The right the court announces was not `enshrined' in the Second Amendment by the framers,'' Stevens wrote. ``It is the product of today's law-changing decision.''
State Impact
Washington's 32-year-old gun law, perhaps the strictest in the nation, barred most residents from owning handguns and required that all legal firearms be kept unloaded and either disassembled or under trigger lock. Six city residents challenged the law, saying they wanted firearms available in their homes for self-defense.
Today's decision didn't resolve whether the Second Amendment binds the states in addition to the federal government and the nation's capital. The ruling upheld the first federal appeals court decision ever to void a law on Second Amendment grounds.
Adopted in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights, the Second Amendment reads in its entirety: ``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 majority justices said they had ``no doubt, on the basis of both text and history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms.''
1939 Case
The Supreme Court hadn't considered the Second Amendment since 1939, when it issued a ruling that both sides in the debate later claimed as support for their arguments.
Scalia today said that ruling limited only the types of weapons protected by the Second Amendment. He said the Constitution protects only those weapons ``typically possessed by law-abiding citizens,'' including handguns.
The Bush administration took a middle ground in the case, contending that, while the Second Amendment protects individual rights, it allows reasonable regulations and doesn't necessarily require the D.C. law to be overturned. The administration urged the court not to raise any doubts about federal weapons restrictions, including the ban on machine guns and the prohibition on firearms possession by convicted felons.
In an unusual move, Vice President Dick Cheney broke from the administration and urged stronger protections for gun rights. Cheney, acting in his capacity as president of the Senate, joined more than 300 lawmakers in urging the court to strike down the handgun ban.
The case is District of Columbia v. Heller, 07-290.
No comments:
Post a Comment