District of Columbia v. Heller

Shelly Parker, et al. v. District of Columbia and Adrian M. Fenty
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
Argued December 7, 2006 Decided March 9, 2007
Full case name: Shelly Parker, Dick Anthony Heller, Tom G. Palmer, Gillian St. Lawrence, Tracey Ambeau and George Lyon v. District of Columbia and Adrian M. Fenty, Mayor of the District of Columbia Citations: 478 F.3d 370, 2007 WL 702084 Docket #: 04-7041 Prior history: Lawsuit dismissed, 311 F.Supp.2d 103 (D.D.C. 2004) Subsequent history:
Holding
The statutes as applied are unconstitutional.
Court membership
Circuit Judges Karen L. Henderson, Thomas B. Griffith and Laurence H. Silberman
Case opinions
Majority by: Silberman Joined by: Griffith Dissent by: Henderson
Laws applied
U.S. Const. Amend. 2; D.C. Code §§ 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22-4504

Shelly Parker, et al. v. District of Columbia and Adrian M. Fenty, 478 F.3d 370 (D.C. Cir. 2007), is a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit became the first federal appeals court in the United States to strike down a gun control law based on the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, and the second to interpret the Second Amendment as protecting an individual right to bear arms. (The first was United States v. Emerson (5th Cir. 2001), cert. denied (2001)).

The 2-1 decision in Parker struck down a portion of a the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975, a local law of the District of Columbia that restricts residents from owning handguns, automatic firearms, and high-capacity semi-automatic firearms, and prohibits possession of unregistered firearms.

In April 2007, Mayor Adrian Fenty petitioned[2] for a rehearing from the full court of appeals on the grounds that the ruling creates inter- and intra-jurisdictional conflict.

Summary of decision

The Court addresses whether appellants have standing to sue for declaratory and injunctive relief in section II (slip op. at 5–12), and it concludes that Heller (who applied for a handgun permit but was denied) has standing.

Essentially, the appellants claim a right to possess what they describe as "functional firearms", by which they mean ones that could be "readily accessible to be used effectively when necessary" for self-defense in the home. They are not asserting a right to carry such weapons outside their homes. Nor are they challenging the District's authority per se to require the registration of firearms.

The Court's own summary of its substantive ruling on the right protected by the second amendment is given on page 46 of the slip opinion (at the end of section III):

To summarize, we conclude that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. That right existed prior to the formation of the new government under the Constitution and was premised on the private use of arms for activities such as hunting and self-defense, the latter being understood as resistance to either private lawlessness or the depredations of a tyrannical government (or a threat from abroad). In addition, the right to keep and bear arms had the important and salutary civic purpose of helping to preserve the citizen militia. The civic purpose was also a political expedient for the Federalists in the First Congress as it served, in part, to placate their Antifederalist opponents. The individual right facilitated militia service by ensuring that citizens would not be barred from keeping the arms they would need when called forth for militia duty. Despite the importance of the Second Amendment's civic purpose, however, the activities it protects are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual's enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or her continued or intermittent enrollment in the militia.

The Appeals Court did specifically find that "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."

Summary of dissent

In dissent, Judge Henderson wrote:

To sum up, there is no dispute that the Constitution, case law and applicable statutes all establish that the District is not a State within the meaning of the Second Amendment. Under United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. at 178, the Second Amendment's declaration and guarantee that "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" relates to the Militia of the States only. That the Second Amendment does not apply to the District, then, is, to me, an unavoidable conclusion.

Commentary

Various experts have expressed opinions of this decision.

Duke Law School Professor Erwin Chemerinsky argued that the District of Columbia's handgun laws could be justified even under an "individual rights" interpretation of the Second Amendment, and that the ruling therefore had "no basis in constitutional law". Also, that the ruling does not answer the question as to the level of scrutiny to be used in evaluating gun control laws. Chemerinsky believes that the regulation of guns should be treated similar to other regulation of property under modern constitutional law and be allowed so long as it is rationally related to achieving a legitimate government purpose. [3]

Cato Institute senior fellow Robert Levy, co-counsel to the Parker plaintiffs, agreed with the court's ruling but describes that his interpretation of the Second Amendment would not preclude all governmental regulation of private ownership of weapons.[4]

"Even the NRA concedes that you can’t have mad men running around with weapons of mass destruction. So there are some restrictions that are permissible and it will be the task of the legislature and the courts to ferret all of that out and draw the lines. I am sure, though, that outright bans on handguns like they have in D.C. won’t be permitted. That is not a reasonable restriction under anybody’s characterization. It is not a restriction, it’s a prohibition." - Robert Levy

Robert Hardaway, professor of law at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, describes in an editorial[5] that the Supreme Court is likely to review this case but a powerful argument can be made that the right of law-abiding citizens to self-protection is a basic human right implied in the Ninth Amendment not the Second Amendment. With the Ninth Amendment providing a much more flexible and reasonable application of the right of self defense.

Chris Cox, executive director of the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action, has indicated support of federal legislation which would repeal the D.C. gun ban rendering the Parker case moot, and effectively eliminate the possibility that the case would be heard by the Supreme Court.

References

Other references

• Liptak, Adam. "Appeals Court Says Gun Ban Violates 2nd Amendment." New York Times. March 9, 2007.
• Miller, Bill, and Robert Barnes. "Appeals Court Guts D.C. Gun Ban." Washington Post. March 9, 2007.

External links

• Text of the decision (slip opinion)