District of Columbia vs Heller

"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."

Here is what gets me. It starts off with a well regulated militia but then comes back to the word people to keep and bear Arms. So is it the militia who can have weapons or is it the people to protect themselves from the militia? Could it be broken down in common language to this:

A government run Military is necessary to our security. Though, it is the right of all people to have weapons and the government should never be able to take this right away.

That makes sense to me. What if this is what they meant:

A government run Military is necessary to the security of our country. At never a time should a branch of government dissolve the military and ask them to turn over their weapons.

That works too.

A case that is ongoing in the Supreme Court is the District of Columbia vs Heller. It has to do with the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975. This Act, passed by the City Council of District of Columbia, bans all handguns, automatic guns and high-capacity semi-automatic weapons,while also prohibiting possession of unregistered firearms. The only ones who could have these weapons were those who had them registered before the Act was passed, or retired police officers and other government employees. This in fact took the right to bear arms away from the people and only gave it exclusivity to government employees and ex government officials. It also said a gun at home had to be unloaded, disassembled, or bound by a trigger lock or similar device. Which would be very ineffective if someone broke in. So a government law which bans the use or possession of guns for protection or otherwise, and it took over 30 years for people to speak up about it.

On March 9,2007, portions of the law were declared unconstitutional by a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals in a 2-1 ruling in the case.The District subsequently applied for a en banc(which is basically the case done over again with all Judges Present), which was denied, and appealed the decision to the Supreme Court.

The Conclusion of the Court of Appeals with Senior Circuit Judge Silberman Writing:

"Once it is determined - as we have done - that handguns are 'Arms' referred to in the Second Amendment, it is not open to the District to ban them ... That is not to suggest that the government is absolutely barred from regulating the use and ownership of pistols. The protections of the Second Amendment are subject to the same sort of reasonable restrictions that have been recognized as limiting, for instance, the First Amendment."

It is now before the Supreme Court to decide.

Early on, Justice Antonin Scalia asked, "why isn't it perfectly plausible, indeed reasonable, to assume that since the framers knew that the way militias were destroyed by tyrants in the past was not by passing a law against militias, but by taking away the people's weapons -- that was the way militias were destroyed." He added, "The two clauses go together beautifully: Since we need a militia, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Later, Justice Scalia noted, "It's not at all uncommon for a legislative provision or a constitutional provision to go further than is necessary for the principal purpose involved. The principal purpose here is the militia, but the second clause goes beyond the militia and says the right of the people to keep and bear arms."

The decision will be made this summer and will have far and wide impacts on jurisdictions who have tried to follow suit after DC, or states that enact gun laws, that are unreasonable in the courts view and final decision.


-R.Mann