District of Columbia versus Heller is inked into the schedule to be heard on March 18, 2008 in the United States Supreme Court. Yesterday, lawyers for Dick Anthony Heller, a Washington, D.C. security guard who is challenging the ban on guns in the District, filed briefs with the Court.
According to Robert Barnes of the Washington Post, one of Heller’s three lawyers, Alan Gura declared the total ban on handguns unconstitutional.
“However else [the District] might regulate the possession and use of arms, their complete ban on the home possession of all functional firearms, and their prohibition against home possession and movement of handguns, are unconstitutional,”
Heller is claiming that the so-called preamble to the Second Amendment, “a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State”, “gives one, but not the only, reason the framers considered the amendment necessary.”
They go on to say that the second part is just as important and separate from the first.
“No doubt or ambiguities arise from the words ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,’ ” the brief contends. “The words cannot be rendered meaningless by resort to their preamble.”
While some have their hopes high that the Supreme Court will once and for all declare the Second Amendment as an individual right and fully restore its functional meaning, even Heller’s lawyers declare that the District, also meaning all states, have a right to limit or control guns.
It has been debated many times here and other forums that many believe the Supreme Court will rule in favor of the individual right but also make clear that states, including the District, can use reasonable means to control guns. The debate then will be to determine what is reasonable.
This is only speculation as we know that we cannot always accurately predict what any court will do, including the Supreme Court.
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Tom Remington
