Friday, June 27, 2008

DC v. Heller Roundup -- SCOTUS Blog

I have been reading up on the DC v. Heller 2nd Amendment decision and found some good posts and links on SCOTUS blog about the topic. Here are some excerpts with links:

SCOTUS Blog -- Court: A Constituional Right to a Gun
The opinion can be downloaded here. Relevant quotes from the majority opinion can be found here, and a replay of our LiveBlog can be found here. Tom’s commentary is here.

Answering a 217-year old constitutional question, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to have a gun, at least in one’s home. The Court, splitting 5-4, struck down a District of Columbia ban on handgun possession. Although times have changed since 1791, Justice Antonin Scalia said for the majority, “it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.”

Examining the words of the Amendment, the Court concluded “we find they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weaons in case of confrontation” — in other words, for self-defense. “The inherent right of self-defense has been central to the Second Amendment right,” it added.

The individual right interpretation, the Court said, “is strongly confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment,” going back to 17th Century England, as well as by gun rights laws in the states before and immediately after the Amendment was put into the U.S. Constitution.

What Congress did in drafting the Amendment, the Court said, was “to codify a pre-existing right, rather than to fashion a new one.” [Read the rest of the article here.]

SCOTUS Blog -- DC v. Heller Roundup

Not surprisingly, yesterday’s decision in DC v. Heller (07-290) has generated a lot of interest in both the media and legal blog communities. Below, we’ve linked to a number of the substantive articles and posts currently available.

Nina Totenberg’s coverage on NPR can be accessed here.

Lyle’s broadcast report for WBUR’s Here and Now program is available here. The Washington Post’s in-depth coverage includes Robert Barnes’ summary of the decision and its implications, as well as this article by Dan Balz and Keith Richburg. Today’s Post also includes a piece on community reaction within the District, as well as this poll indicating that 70% of its readers agree with yesterday’s decision (as of 9:00 am). Monica Hesse offers this recap of the “duel” between yesterday’s majority opinion and dissent authors.

Op-Ed columnist Colbert I. King offers this opinion piece, and columnist Marc Fisher provides his take in Raw Fisher. [Link to entire article here.]


SCOTUS Blog -- Commentary: So What's Next on Guns?
If the Supreme Court’s historic ruling on gun rights brings about, as the dissenters said, “a dramatic upheaval in the law,” perhaps that was enough of a task to perform for one day. And, in fact, Justice Antonin Scalia’s opinion for the Court conceded that the ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller was but a first step, saying: “Since this case represents this Court’s first in-depth examination of the Second Amendment, one should not expect it to clarify the entire field.” And it definitely did not.

Still, it is remarkable how much was left undecided, and, therefore, how wide-ranging the post-Heller litigation is going to be. It is already apparent, from comments that the National Rifle Association was circulating among the news media Thursday, that the Nation will not have to wait long for those lawsuits — probably a flood of them — to begin. Justice Stephen G. Breyer’s dissenting opinion lists a wide array of gun control laws now in force that, one suspects, the NRA will soon challenge. Breyer, in fact, suggests that “the decision threatens to throw into doubt the constitutionality of gun laws throughout the United States.” [Link to entire article here.]

2 comments:

Rickahyatt said...
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