High court lifts limit on right to bear arms

:clapping: It's about time someone gave consideration to our 2nd Amendment rights being trampled.
High court lifts limit on gun ownership

by Robert Cohen/The Star-Ledger Friday June 27, 2008, 12:05 AM


WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court Thursday declared for the first time that the Constitution provides Americans with the individual right to possess firearms for self- protection, hunting and other lawful purposes.

Upending years of legal rulings, the landmark 5-4 decision confers on citizens a new right under the Second Amendment. It is sure to provoke a contentious election-year battle between gun-rights and gun-control advocates.

The ruling was hailed by the National Rifle Association as "a great moment in American history" and decried by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which said it is likely to "embolden criminal defendants, and ideological extremists, to file new legal attacks on existing gun laws."

The majority, led by Justice Antonin Scalia, struck down a 32-year-old District of Columbia law that banned handgun ownership and required that rifles and shotguns kept in private homes be unloaded and either disassembled or protected by a trigger lock.
The court found the law incompatible with the Bill of Rights.

"There seems to us no doubt, on the basis of both text and history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms," Scalia wrote. He said that right is unconnected to service in a militia and protects the use of firearms for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense in the home.

Scalia said the court's interpretation is strongly confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment going back to 17th-century England, as well as by gun-rights laws in the states before and immediately after the amendment was added -- along with the nine others that made up the Bill of Rights -- to the Constitution in 1791.

The court had never before interpreted the Second Amendment, whose language has generated decades of debate: "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."

In a dissenting opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens said there is "no indication that the Framers of the Amendment intended to enshrine the common-law right of self-defense in the Constitution." He said the Second Amendment was adopted not to provide an individual right but to "protect the right of the people of each of the several states to maintain a well-regulated militia."
Stevens said the creation of "a new constitutional right" leaves for future cases the "formidable task of defining the scope of permissible regulations."

Scalia said the right is "not unlimited," and he cited examples in which it would not apply.

"It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose," Scalia wrote. "Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on long-standing 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 arms."

Scalia was joined in the majority by Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Samuel Alito Jr., Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy. Besides Stevens, the dissenters were Associate Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and Stephen Breyer.

Breyer, writing a separate dissent, said he believes the District of Columbia's handgun ban was a legitimate response to a high violent-crime rate in an urban area, and he warned that the majority ruling "threatens to throw into doubt the constitutionality of gun laws throughout the United States."

The decision affirms a finding by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

In 1939, the previous time the high court addressed the Second Amendment, it upheld a man's conviction for transporting a sawed-off shotgun across state lines, ruling the weapons in question had nothing to do with maintaining an effective state militia. Lower courts have routinely held that the Second Amendment protects the rights to bear arms in connection with service in a state militia like the National Guard.

Alan Gura, the attorney who challenged the law on behalf of Washington, D.C., resident **** Heller, a private security guard, said that with private gun ownership now enshrined in the Bill of Rights, "politicians cannot ban or regulate guns out of existence."
Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the NRA, said the decision is the "opening salvo in a step-by-step process of providing relief for law-abiding Americans everywhere that have been deprived of this freedom." He said the National Rifle Association will file lawsuits in San Francisco, Chicago and several of its suburbs contending handgun restrictions there violate the Supreme Court ruling.

Gun-control advocates vowed to keep pressing for firearm restrictions.

"Our fight to enact sensible gun laws will be undiminished by the Supreme Court's decision," said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

He said legal attacks on existing guns laws "must be successfully resisted in the interest of public safety."

The ruling drew quick responses from both presidential candidates.
Republican John McCain described it as "a landmark victory for Second Amendment freedom." Referring to a remark made by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama during the primary campaign, McCain said: "Unlike the elitist view that believes Americans cling to guns out of bitterness, today's ruling recognizes that gun ownership is a fundamental right -- sacred, just as the right to free speech and assembly."

Obama said in a statement, "I have always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms, but I also identify with the need for crime-ravaged communities to save their children from the violence that plagues our streets through common-sense, effective safety measures."

In Congress, McCain voted against an assault-weapons ban and favored shielding gunmakers and dealers from civil lawsuits, but he supported background checks at gun shows. Obama has backed a ban on assault weapons, tighter state firearms regulation and "common-sense regulation."