Case Summary : District of Columbia v. Heller, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L.Ed.2d 637 (June 26, 2008)

Summary: District of Columbia v. Heller, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L.Ed.2d 637 (June 26, 2008). A special policeman filed suit against the District of Columbia after it refused his application to register a handgun. D.C. law banned handgun possession, making it a crime to carry an unregistered firearm; prohibiting the registration of firearms; prohibiting the unlicensed carrying of a firearm; authorizing the police chief to issue 1- year licenses; and requiring that residents keep handguns unloaded and disassembled or otherwise bound by a trigger lock. Mr. Heller sought to enjoin enforcement of the registration, licensing and trigger lock requirements.

The District Court dismissed the suit, but the D.C. Circuit reversed. In a 5-4 decision written by Justice Scalia (Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer dissenting), the Supreme Court held that the District's ban on handgun possession in the home and its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purposes of immediate self-defense violated the Second Amendment. The Court held that the Second Amendment protected an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and to use that firearm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. The Court determined that the Second Amendment's prefatory clause announced a purpose but did not limit or expand the scope of the operative clause. The operative clause's text and history demonstrated that it connoted an individual right to keep and bear arms, and the Court's reading of the operative clause was consistent with the announced purpose of the prefatory clause. None of the Court's precedents (U.S. v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 23 L.Ed. 588 (1876); Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252, 29 L.Ed. 615 (1886)) foreclosed its conclusions, and the holding of U.S. v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174, 83 L.Ed. 1206 (1939) was read as not limiting the right to bear arms used only for militia purposes. Instead, the Second Amendment only limited the types of arms to those used by the militia, which the Court interpreted as meaning arms “in common use for lawful purposes.” The Court held that the Second Amendment right was not unlimited, and the opinion was not to be taken as casting doubt on certain long-standing prohibitions related to firearms, such as bans on possession of firearms in sensitive places (e.g., on government property or in schools), by the mentally ill, or by felons. Likewise, the opinion did not cast doubt on the laws imposing conditions or qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.

OUTCOME: The Court affirmed the judgment of the Court of Appeals. Assuming respondent was not disqualified from exercising Second Amendment rights, the Court held that the District must permit respondent to register his handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in his home.