Saturday, November 11, 2017

District of Columbia v. Heller, Quotes From the Majority Opinion

Until 2008 the Supreme Court did not undertake a case deciding what the wording of the Second Amendment meant. In District of Columbia V. Heller, The Supreme Court did address this, with Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the opinion for the 5-4 majority (joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, and Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr.). The complete text of the majority opinion can be found at  District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008). Here are relevant quotes I took directly from that opinion.

[P.53] We conclude that nothing in our precedents forecloses our adoption of the original understanding of the Second Amendment. It should be unsurprising that such a significant matter has been for so long judicially unresolved.

[P.54] Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose...For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues.

...nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of

[P. 55] arms. 26
[Footnote] 26 We identify these presumptively lawful regulatory measures only as examples; our list does not purport to be exhaustive.

We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those “in common use at the time.” 307 U. S., at 179. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of “dangerous and unusual weapons.”

[P. 56] As the quotations earlier in this opinion demonstrate, the inherent right of self-defense has been central to the Second Amendment right. The handgun ban amounts to a prohibition of an entire class of “arms” that is overwhelmingly chosen by American society for that lawful purpose. The prohibition extends, moreover, to the home, where the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute. Under any of the standards of scrutiny that we have applied to enumerated constitutional rights, banning from

[P. 57] the home “the most preferred firearm in the nation to ‘keep’ and use for protection of one’s home and family...would fail constitutional muster.

[P. 58] We must also address the District’s requirement (as applied to respondent’s handgun) that firearms in the home be rendered and kept inoperable at all times. This makes it impossible for citizens to use them for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional. The District argues that we should interpret this element of the statute to contain an exception for self-defense.

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/554/570/opinion.html

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