Gun owners

The U.S. Supreme Court has found that private gun owners have a constitutional right to keep handguns for private use in their own homes.

The District of Columbia (Washington D.C.) passed legislation making it a crime to carry an unregistered gun and prohibiting the registration of handguns. The law also requires owners of lawfully registered guns to keep such guns unloaded and disassembled or locked. The law was challenged by a resident who applied to register a handgun that he wished to keep at home; he alleged that the law violated the Second Amendment of the US Constitution, which states: “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 District of Columbia argued that the Second Amendment only protects the right to bear arms if the individual is involved in a militia.

The case was dismissed by the District Court but the dismissal was reversed in the Court of Appeals. The District of Columbia appealed to the Supreme Court. The Court held that the law violated the Second Amendment. First, the Court found that the first clause of the Amendment states a purpose while the second clause is the operative clause of the Amendment, but the fact that a purpose was stated in the first clause does not limit the scope of the second clause, and thus the right to keep and bear arms cannot be restricted. In reaching this conclusion, the Court relied heavily on the drafting history of the Amendment.

The Court then found that the ban on handguns and the requirement of a trigger-lock also violated the Second Amendment, since it would prevent the lawful self-defense of the home. Nothing restricts the District of Columbia from having a licensing procedure, and so the District was required to allow the plaintiff to register his gun and issue him a license to keep it at home.
Source: Source: District of Columbia et al. v. Heller (2008) 554 U.S. _____.