Judgment: The Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court's judgment. 356, 731 (1931) But even assuming that this legislative history is relevant, Justice Stevens flatly misreads the historical record. One example from each decade will convey the general flavor: [The purpose of the Respondent Dick Heller is a D. C. special police officer authorized to carry a handgun while on duty at the Federal Judicial Center. The Court of Appeals directed the District Court to enter summary judgment for respondent. Just as the See also Kates, Handgun Prohibition and the Original Meaning of the 1. Second Amendment . Thus, his opinion was not an unqualified endorsement of the right to bear arms for any reason in any manner at any location. The second amendment means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress. 92 U. S., at 553. The judgment in the case upheld against a After an exhaustive discussion of the arguments for and against gun control, Justice Breyer arrives at his interest-balanced answer: because handgun violence is a problem, because the law is limited to an urban area, and because there were somewhat similar restrictions in the founding period (a false proposition that we have already discussed), the interest-balancing inquiry results in the constitutionality of the handgun ban. 204, 244 (1983) (19th-century courts never read common defence to limit the use of weapons to militia service). See, e.g., 30 Journals of Continental Congress 349351 (J. Fitzpatrick ed. Doc. Quakers opposed the use of arms not just for militia service, but for any violent purpose whatsoeverso much so that Quaker frontiersmen were forbidden to use arms to defend their families, even though [i]n such circumstances the temptation to seize a hunting rifle or knife in self-defense must sometimes have been almost overwhelming. P. Brock, Pacifism in the United States 359 (1968); see M. Hirst, The Quakers in Peace and War 336339 (1923); 3 T. Clarkson, Portraiture of Quakerism 103104 (3d ed. 7Pet. The provision of the constitution, declaring the right of the people to keep and bear arms, &c. was probably intended to apply to the right of the people to bear arms for such [militia-related] purposes only, and not to prevent congress or the legislatures of the different states from enacting laws to prevent the citizens from always going armed. Aside from any necessity of self-protection to the person, it represents among all nations power coupled with the exercise of a certain jurisdiction. Fourth Amendment , and by the First and Second Amendment may not, perhaps, be thought to have any important bearing on this point. 1. We consider whether a District of Columbia prohibition on the possession of usable handguns in the home violates the Even clearer was Justice Baldwin. See post, at 1213, n. 9; Linguists Brief 24. Similarly, the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional. See, e.g., Sheldon, in 5 Blume 346; Rawle 123; Pomeroy 152153; Abbott333. [Its uses] sugges[t] that the people protected by the Congress is given the power to provide for calling forth the militia, 8, cl. DICK ANTHONY HELLER. A different construction however has been given to it. B. Oliver, The Rights of an American Citizen 177 (1832). There are many reasons why the militia was thought to be necessary to the security of a free state. See 3 Story 1890. For most of our history, the Bill of Rights was not thought applicable to the States, and the Federal Government did not significantly regulate the possession of firearms by law-abiding citizens. 8 See Pa. Some general knowledge of firearms is important to the public welfare; because it would be impossible, in case of war, to organize promptly an efficient force of volunteers unless the people had some familiarity with weapons of war. Second Amendment right ought not be abused to the disturbance of the public peace, such as by assembling with other armed individuals for an unlawful purposestatements that make no sense if the right does not extend to any individual purpose. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Ninth Amendment s. 7 See, e.g., 3 A Compleat Collection of State-Tryals 185 (1719) (Hath not every Subject power to keep Arms, as well as Servants in his House for defence of his Person?); T. Wood, A New Institute of the Imperial or Civil Law 282 (1730) (Those are guilty of publick Force, who keep Arms in their Houses, and make use of them otherwise than upon Journeys or Hunting, or for Sale ); A Collection of All the Acts of Assembly, Now in Force, in the Colony of Virginia 596 (1733) (Free Negros, Mulattos, or Indians, and Owners of Slaves, seated at Frontier Plantations, may obtain Licence from a Justice of Peace, for keeping Arms, &c.); J. Ayliffe, A New Pandect of Roman Civil Law 195 (1734) (Yet a Person might keep Arms in his House, or on his Estate, on the Account of Hunting, Navigation, Travelling, and on the Score of Selling them in the way of Trade or Commerce, or such Arms as accrued to him by way of Inheritance); J. Trusler, A Concise View of the Common Law and Statute Law of England 270 (1781) (if [papists] keep arms in their houses, such arms may be seized by a justice of the peace); Some Considerations on the Game Laws 54 (1796) (Who has been deprived by [the law] of keeping arms for his own defence? 1833). Three important founding-era legal scholars interpreted the See, e.g., Engquist v. Oregon Dept. Second Amendment in published writings. This is the mighty rock upon which the dissent rests its case.24, We may as well consider at this point (for we will have to consider eventually) what types of weapons Miller permits. Even if the majority was correct in finding that the Second Amendment protected an individual right to bear arms, according to Breyer, the challenged laws still would be constitutional. 472 U. S. 479, 24 As for the hundreds of judges, post, at 2, who have relied on the view of the Second Amendment for the proposition that such armament could not run afoul of any power of the federal government (since the amendment prohibits Congress from ordering disarmament). There has been a great difference of opinion on the question. 2 J. Kent, Commentaries on American Law *340, n. 2 (O. Holmes ed., 12th ed. 3 Story 1858. In the wake of that decision, the District adopted the Firearms Registration Amendment Act of 2008 (FRA), D.C. Law 17372, which - amended the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975, D.C. Pennsylvanias Declaration of Rights of 1776 said: That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves, and the state . XIII, in 5 Thorpe 3082, 3083 (emphasis added). Keep and bear Arms. We move now from the holder of the rightthe peopleto the substance of the right: to keep and bear Arms.. 1, 5 (2007); see, e.g., 4 Blackstone 151 (1769); Brutus Essay III (Nov. 15, 1787), in The Essential Antifederalist 251, 253 (W. Allen & G. Lloyd eds., 2d ed. 18 Justice Stevens says that the drafters of the Virginia Declaration of Rights rejected this proposal and adopted instead a provision written by George Mason stressing the importance of the militia. The alternative to a standing army is a well-regulated militia, but this cannot exist unless the people are trained to bearing arms. District of Columbia v. Heller: What's Next? | Cato Unbound Those who believe that the In Andrews v. State, the Tennessee Supreme Court likewise held that a statute that forbade openly carrying a pistol publicly or privately, without regard to time or place, or circumstances, 50 Tenn., at 187, violated the state constitutional provision (which the court equated with the See Frye, The Peculiar Story of United States v. Miller, 3 N. Y. U. J. L. & Liberty 48, 6568 (2008). Stat. Heller Dissent Stevens by John Paul Stevens Court Documents Case Syllabus Opinion of the Court Dissenting Opinions Stevens Breyer Justice Stevens, with whom Justice Souter, Justice Ginsburg, and Justice Breyer join, dissenting. But if bear arms means, as the petitioners and the dissent think, the carrying of arms only for military purposes, one simply cannot add for the purpose of killing game. The right to carry arms in the militia for the purpose of killing game is worthy of the mad hatter. There is nothing to this. Nowhere else in the Constitution does a right attributed to the people refer to anything other than an individual right.6. This is fully consistent with the ordinary definition of the militia as all able-bodied men. Second Amendment : The Highest Stage of Originalism, Bogus 74, 81. The named plaintiff, Dick Heller, was a licensed special police officer for the District of Columbia who was not allowed to have a gun at home despite being able to use it at work. Between the Restoration and the Glorious Revolution, the Stuart Kings Charles II and James II succeeded in using select militias loyal to them to suppress political dissidents, in part by disarming their opponents. The final section of the brief recognized that some courts have said that the right to bear arms includes the right of the individual to have them for the protection of his person and property, and launched an alternative argument that weapons which are commonly used by criminals, such as sawed-off shotguns, are not protected. Our opinion is, that any law, State or Federal, is repugnant to the Constitution, and void, which contravenes this right, originally belonging to our forefathers, trampled under foot by Charles I. and his two wicked sons and successors, re-established by the revolution of 1688, conveyed to this land of liberty by the colonists, and finally incorporated conspicuously in our own Magna Charta!, Likewise, in State v. Chandler, Justice Stevens view thus relies on the proposition, unsupported by any evidence, that different people of the founding period had vastly different conceptions of the right to keep and bear arms. 3247. District of Columbia v. Heller | THE DAVIS LAW FIRM | (866) 545-GUNS Second Amendment : but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person. Creating the Bill of Rights 12 (H. Veit, K. Bowling, & C. Bickford eds. That would be a startling reading of the opinion, since it would mean that the National Firearms Acts restrictions on machineguns (not challenged in Miller) might be unconstitutional, machineguns being useful in warfare in 1939. See 1 Ga., at 251. . With respect to the proposed Amendment, Senator Pomeroy described as one of the three indispensable safeguards of liberty under the Constitution a mans right to bear arms for the defense of himself and family and his homestead. Cong. QED. But once again the States highest court thought otherwise. 1)); see generally State v. Duke, 1976) (hereinafter Documentary Hist.). The critical difference between Heller and the other plaintiffs was that he had applied for a handgun permit and been refused. No. Justice Breyer moves on to make a broad jurisprudential point: He criticizes us for declining to establish a level of scrutiny for evaluating at 143 (dissenting opinion) (quoting Black's Law Dictionary 214 (6th ed. In Muscarello v. United States, Rawle further said that the NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the . The most prominent examples are those most relevant to the 489, Post, at 4 (citing Churchill, Gun Regulation, the Police Power, and the Right to Keep Arms in Early America, These experiences caused Englishmen to be extremely wary of concentrated military forces run by the state and to be jealous of their arms. First Amendment protects the right [singular] of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. See, e.g., Pa. Second Amendment , as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense. 4 Justice Stevens criticizes us for discussing the prologue last. To preserve this privilege, and to secure to the people the ability to oppose themselves in military force against the usurpations of government, as well as against enemies from without, that government is forbidden by any law or proceeding to invade or destroy the right to keep and bear arms . Writing for the majority, Antonin Scalia argued that the operative clause of the amendment, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed, codifies an individual right derived from English common law and codified in the English Bill of Rights (1689). The handgun ban amounts to a prohibition of an entire class of arms that is overwhelmingly chosen by American society for that lawful purpose. In addition, in a shorter 1840 work Story wrote: One of the ordinary modes, by which tyrants accomplish their purposes without resistance, is, by disarming the people, and making it an offence to keep arms, and by substituting a regular army in the stead of a resort to the militia. A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States 450 (reprinted in 1986). SYLLABUS 92 U. S. 542 Before turning to limitations upon the individual right, however, we must determine whether the prefatory clause of the First Amendment ), the unitary meaning of to keep and bear is established. We reach the question, then: Does the preface fit with an operative clause that creates an individual right to keep and bear arms? The Second Amendment : Nine state constitutional provisions written in the 18th century or the first two decades of the 19th, which enshrined a right of citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state or bear arms in defense of himself and the state. 8 It is clear from those formulations that bear arms did not refer only to carrying a weapon in an organized military unit. The amici also dismiss examples such as bear arms for the purpose of killing game because those uses are expressly qualified. Linguists Brief 24. 1802)). It is true it was the indictment that described the right as bearing arms for a lawful purpose. But, in explicit reference to the right described in the indictment, the Court stated that The second amendment declares that it [i.e., the right of bearing arms for a lawful purpose] shall not be infringed. 92 U. S., at 553. In Nunn v. State, the Georgia Supreme Court struck down a prohibition on carrying pistols openly (even though it upheld a prohibition on carrying concealed weapons). Heller. It held that the 696, pp. 1836) (reprinted 1941) (North Carolina proposal); see also 2 Documentary Hist. Second Amendment pertains only to the carrying of arms in the organized militia. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. , held that the right to keep and bear arms was not violated by a law that forbade bodies of men to associate together as military organizations, or to drill or parade with arms in cities and towns unless authorized by law. Id., at 264265. 1213), the militia is assumed by Article I already to be in existence. With him on the briefs was Richard E. Gardiner. The word Arms would have two different meanings at once: weapons (as the object of keep) and (as the object of bear) one-half of an idiom. There is no evidence that the drafters regarded the Mason proposal as a substitute for the Jefferson proposal. He proposes, explicitly at least, none of the traditionally expressed levels (strict scrutiny, intermediate scrutiny, rational basis), but rather a judge-empowering interest-balancing inquiry that asks whether the statute burdens a protected interest in a way or to an extent that is out of proportion to the statutes salutary effects upon other important governmental interests. Post, at 10. If all that was required to overcome the right to keep and bear arms was a rational basis, the Const., Art. First Amendment s right of free speech was not, see, e.g., United States v. Williams, 553 U. S. ___ (2008). 13, 1769, in Boston Under Military Rule 79 (O. Dickerson ed. As the most important early American edition of Blackstones Commentaries (by the law professor and former Antifederalist St. George Tucker) made clear in the notes to the description of the arms right, Americans understood the right of self-preservation as permitting a citizen to repe[l] force by force when the intervention of society in his behalf, may be too late to prevent an injury. 1 Blackstones Commentaries 145146, n. 42 (1803) (hereinafter Tuckers Blackstone). v. HELLER . 281 (1897) 90, 9192 (Ky. 1822); State v. Reid, 1 Ala. 612, 616617 (1840); State v. Schoultz, See post, at 24, and n. 24. , our first in-depth Free Exercise Clause case, left that area in a state of utter certainty. One of the rational bases listed for that distinction was the legislative finding that for each intruder stopped by a firearm there are four gun-related accidents within the home. Ibid. 2 That construction has not been challenged here. Many of the laws cited punished violation with fine in a similar amount; the 1783 Massachusetts gunpowder-storage law carried a somewhat larger fine of 10 (200 shillings) and forfeiture of the weapon. 17 Article I, 8, cl. The analogy makes no sense if firearms could not be used for any individual purpose at all. 243 (1833), believed that the June 26, 2008 6:41 PM In District of Columbia v. Heller, Justices Stevens and Breyer wrote lengthy dissents (46 pages and 44 pages, respectively) from Justice Scalia's majority opinion. We must also address the Districts requirement (as applied to respondents handgun) that firearms in the home be rendered and kept inoperable at all times. We start therefore with a strong presumption that the First Amendment contains the freedom-of-speech guarantee that the people ratified, which included exceptions for obscenity, libel, and disclosure of state secrets, but not for the expression of extremely unpopular and wrong-headed views. Scalia's decision thus rested on two different grounds for finding the law unconstitutional: interfering with the right to bear commonly used weapons and interfering with the right of self-defense and defense of one's family and property. The 1773 edition of Samuel Johnsons dictionary defined arms as weapons of offence, or armour of defence. 1 Dictionary of the English Language 107 (4th ed.) An 1829 decision by the Supreme Court of Michigan said: The constitution of the United States also grants to the citizen the right to keep and bear arms. Second Amendment the various proposals in the state conventions and the debates in Congress. Second Amendment s prefatory clause: The militia is the natural defence of a free country). Second Amendment protects citizens right to use a gun in an organization from which Congress has plenary authority to exclude them. As for the text of the Courts opinion itself, that discusses none of the history of the Second Amendment is to have weapons., The phrase keep arms was not prevalent in the written documents of the founding period that we have found, but there are a few examples, all of which favor viewing the right to keep Arms as an individual right unconnected with militia service. Justice Stevens points to a study by amici supposedly showing that the phrase bear arms was most frequently used in the military context. 527 U. S. 706, Second Amendment that favors the individual-rights view. The phrase bear Arms also had at the time of the founding an idiomatic meaning that was significantly different from its natural meaning: to serve as a soldier, do military service, fight or to wage war. See Linguists Brief 18; post, at 11 (Stevens, J., dissenting). 1452, 1453 (J. Kaminski & G. Saladino eds. Second Amendment . Justice Stevens authored another dissenting opinion, arguing that the question before the Court was not whether the Second Amendment, as a whole, applies to the states, . PDF DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA et al. v. HELLER - Library of Congress Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. 307 U. S., at 178 (emphasis added). The We consider whether a District of Columbia prohibition on the possession of usable handguns in the home violates the 2nd Amendment to the That broad public-safety understanding was the connotation given to the North Carolina right by that States Supreme Court in 1843. Declaration of Rights IX, XII, XVI, in 5 Thorpe 30833084; Ohio Const., Arts. It is inconceivable that this law would have been enforced against a person exercising his right to self-defense on New Years Day against such drunken hooligans. But if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both. Rawle 121122.20.