District of Columbia v. Heller: 10 Years Later
June 26th of this year marked the ten-year anniversary of one of the most significant United States Supreme Court decisions in the modern era. District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) is most commonly referred as the Supreme Court’s most significant pronouncement in regard to the interpretation of the Second Amendment [1]. Dick Heller, a Washington D.C. police officer, was denied a handgun license, and then brought suit against the District of Columbia, in a case that was initially dismissed by the district court and subsequently reversed by the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals.
Although Heller, as a police officer was legally allowed to carry a handgun while on duty, the handgun he was applying for was to be kept inside his home for personal purposes. After his application was denied, Heller said that the District of Columbia’s gun laws infringed upon his Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms, which subsequently brought his lawsuit against the city [2]. The gun laws in District of Columbia that Heller believed were unconstitutional included making it illegal for any resident to carry any unlicensed firearm, banned the registration of handguns, and required gun-owners to keep firearms unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock at all times unless the firearm was kept in a place of business or used for legal recreational activities [2]. What started out as a police officer contesting these gun laws ended up in the Supreme Court hearing a gun ownership case for the first time in 69 years.
Despite the fact that the lawsuit was originally filed in 2003, the case was not brought up to the Supreme Court until 2008. The district court originally dismissed Heller’s lawsuit, but the case eventually made it up to the United States Court of Appeals in Washington D.C. The federal court reversed the district court’s decision by arguing that Dick Heller had standing ground to sue, because he had sustained an injury [3]. While Heller did not sustain a physical injury, the court argued that his denied handgun license was the so called “injury” in the case. The court sided with Heller’s contention that the D.C. statute was invalid because it ran afoul of his Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms [3].
In a narrow 5–4 ruling, the Supreme Court not only upheld the Court of Appeals decision, but reinterpreted the Second Amendment in addition. The late Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the concurring opinion joined by John Roberts, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito. In the concurring opinion delivered by the majority, Scalia wrote that the District of Columbia’s gun laws infringed upon Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms. In the opinion, he wrote:
“The Second Amendment is naturally divided into two parts: its prefatory clause and its operative clause. The former does not limit the latter grammatically, but rather announces a purpose. The Amendment could be rephrased, ‘Because a well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed’” [4].
In the first clause of the opinion, the five justices reinterpreted the Second Amendment which is why this case is seen as a landmark decision ten years later. This reinterpretation is what legal analysts most commonly refer to as the individual-right theory. The individual-right theory is an interpretation of the Second Amendment in which all American citizens are given the right to keep and bear arms. This theory is taken directly from the Second Amendment which states, “… the right of the people to keep and bear arms” [5]. However, prior to the 2008 Supreme Court decision, the last reinterpretation of the Second Amendment in 1939 was not the individual-right theory. In United States v. Miller (1939), the Supreme Court unanimously sided with the collective-right theory. The collective-right theory is also taken directly from the Second Amendment, like the individual-right theory. This theory believes that only the militia is given the Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. The problem that many scholars encounter when trying to interpret the Second Amendment is the Framers’ true intentions. In District of Columbia v. Heller, the five justices sided with the individual-right theory after 69 years of abiding by the collective-right theory.
The four justices who voted against Heller in this decision include Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, David Souter, and John Paul Stevens. John Paul Stevens, who is a Republican, wrote the dissenting opinion in which he stated:
“Neither the text of the Amendment nor the arguments advanced by its proponents evidenced the slightest interest in limiting any legislature’s authority to regulate private civilian uses of firearms. Specifically, there is no indication that the Framers of the Amendment intended to enshrine the common-law right of self-defense in the Constitution” [6].
Three years later in 2011, after Heller was already decided by the Supreme Court, the case was brought to the United States Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia. One of the judges that sat on the bench in this decision was Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who is the current nominee to the Supreme Court to replace Justice Kennedy. In this court case, the Court of Appeals dismissed the district court’s original decision which determined Heller had no standing ground to sue and that District of Columbia’s gun laws were constitutional. Kavanaugh sided with the Supreme Court’s decision, and this has come into play recently when talking about his nomination to the Court [7].
In the year 2018, District of Columbia v. Heller still holds the utmost importance. This decision has curtailed any gun control laws on the federal level, even after the most devastating shootings such as Newtown in 2012 and Parkland in 2018. The Heller decision has changed talks when it comes to both gun ownership and regulation, but has stood in the way of gun control.
For more information on gun control, please visit: https://everytown.org/
References:
[1] NRA-ILA. “Ten Years After District of Columbia v. Heller, the Fight to Secure Second Amendment Rights Continues.” NRA-ILA.
[2] “District of Columbia v. Heller.”
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2007/07-290
[3] Duignan, Brian. “District of Columbia v. Heller.” Encyclopædia Britannica. June 19, 2018.
https://www.britannica.com/event/District-of-Columbia-v-Heller
[4] Scalia, Antonin. “DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER.” LII / Legal Information Institute. March 18, 2008.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZO.html
[5] Strasser, Ryan. “Second Amendment.” LII / Legal Information Institute. June 05, 2017.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/second_amendment
[6] Stevens, John Paul. “DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER.” LII / Legal Information Institute. March 18, 2008.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZD.html
[7] “FindLaw’s United States DC Circuit Case and Opinions.” Findlaw.
