By a vote of 5-4, The United States Supreme Court today ruled that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees a fundamental, INDIVIDUAL right to keep a firearm in your own home.
Voting with the majority were Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Scalia, Justice Thomas, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Alito, who wrote the opinion. Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Souter and Stevens voted to uphold D.C.’s complete gun ban.
Buckeye Firearms Foundation, together with a coalition of private security companies, filed an amicus brief in support of Mr. Heller.
With this decision, the Court signaled an unequivocal end to the two-decade legal charade popularly referred to as the "collectivist theory." Your right to possess a firearm in your own home is an individual right and has nothing to do with your role, or lack of role, in any militia.
Prior to today’s decision, the majority of the federal court circuits had utilized the collectivist theory, mostly as a means to uphold criminal convictions for violations of federal firearm laws. Clearly bad facts make bad law, and today’s decision is the reprieve gun owners have been looking for.
But what does the Heller decision mean? The easiest way to answer this question is to look to the question that the Supreme Court asked: Whether the following provisions, D.C. Code §§ 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22-4504(a), and 7-2507.02, violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes?
That is the scope of the decision in a nutshell. People living in D.C. have the right to possess firearms in their own homes, and D.C.’s law, which amounted to a ban, violated that right. However, even though the decision is limited to this specific holding, the Heller case will clearly have nationwide impact in the coming years as it is tested and applied against cities in lawsuits throughout the United States.
Buckeye Firearms Association
Voting with the majority were Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Scalia, Justice Thomas, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Alito, who wrote the opinion. Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Souter and Stevens voted to uphold D.C.’s complete gun ban.
Buckeye Firearms Foundation, together with a coalition of private security companies, filed an amicus brief in support of Mr. Heller.
With this decision, the Court signaled an unequivocal end to the two-decade legal charade popularly referred to as the "collectivist theory." Your right to possess a firearm in your own home is an individual right and has nothing to do with your role, or lack of role, in any militia.
Prior to today’s decision, the majority of the federal court circuits had utilized the collectivist theory, mostly as a means to uphold criminal convictions for violations of federal firearm laws. Clearly bad facts make bad law, and today’s decision is the reprieve gun owners have been looking for.
But what does the Heller decision mean? The easiest way to answer this question is to look to the question that the Supreme Court asked: Whether the following provisions, D.C. Code §§ 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22-4504(a), and 7-2507.02, violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes?
That is the scope of the decision in a nutshell. People living in D.C. have the right to possess firearms in their own homes, and D.C.’s law, which amounted to a ban, violated that right. However, even though the decision is limited to this specific holding, the Heller case will clearly have nationwide impact in the coming years as it is tested and applied against cities in lawsuits throughout the United States.
Buckeye Firearms Association
