Supremes Vacate D.C. Handgun Ban

As if we didn’t already know….

The Supreme Court of the United States this morning shot down the District’s ban on handgun possession, a ruling that was no surprise given the tenor of oral arguments on the case this past spring.

Here is an abridgment of the opinion, which was written by Justice Antonin Scalia in the District of Columbia v. Heller, as rendered by SCOTUSBLOG:

“Logic demands that there be a link between the stated purpose and the command.”

“We start therefore with a strong presumption that the Second Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to all Americans.”

“the most natural reading of ‘keep Arms’ in the Second Amendment is to “have weapons.”

“The term was applied, then as now, to weapons that were not specifically designed for military use and were not employed in a military capacity.”

“Putting all of these textual elements together, we find that they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation.”

The specific casualties of the ruling are D.C.’s outright ban on gun possession, plus the D.C. requirement that arms in the home “must be unloaded and disassembled or have a trigger lock in place,” according to SCOTUSBLOG.

The District’s powers that be, including Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, and many, many others are sure to be outraged by the opinion. Outraged, that is, and completely powerless to do anything about it.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 26th, 2008 at 10:40 am and is filed under Adrian Fenty, Crime, Crushed Dreams, Elites. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.