General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Would requiring all gun owners to have a license, all guns to be registered, [View all]elleng
(141,926 posts)'Holding and Rule
The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.
Constitutional Construction
The prefatory clause A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State merely announces a purpose. It does not limit or expand the scope of the operative clause the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. The operative clauses text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms.
The militia consisted of all males capable of acting together for the common defense. The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable citizen militias, thereby enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The Antifederalists therefore sought to preserve the citizens militia by denying Congress the power to abridge the right of individuals to keep and bear arms.'>>>
http://www.lawnix.com/cases/dc-heller.html
The Illinois Supreme Court in People v. Aguilar (2013), summed up the Heller's findings and reasoning:
In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), the Supreme Court undertook its first-ever "in-depth examination" of the second amendment's meaning Id. at 635. After a lengthy historical discussion, the Court ultimately concluded that the second amendment "guarantee[s] the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation" (id. at 592); that "central to" this right is "the inherent right of self-defense"
id. at 628); that "the home" is "where the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute" (id. at 628); and that, "above all other interests," the second amendment elevates "the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home" (id. at 635). Based on this understanding, the Court held that a District of Columbia law banning handgun possession in the home violated the second amendment. Id. at 635.[46]
The core holding in D.C. v. Heller is that the Second Amendment is an individual right intimately tied to the natural right of self-defense.
The Scalia majority invokes much historical material to support its finding that the right to keep and bear arms belongs to individuals; more precisely, Scalia asserts in the Court's opinion that the "people" to whom the Second Amendment right is accorded are the same "people" who enjoy First and Fourth Amendment protection: "'The Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical meaning.' United States v. Sprague, 282 U. S. 716, 731 (1931); see also Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 188 (1824). Normal meaning may of course include an idiomatic meaning, but it excludes secret or technical meanings...."
With that finding as anchor, the Court ruled a total ban on operative handguns in the home is unconstitutional, as the ban runs afoul of both the self-defense purpose of the Second Amendment a purpose not previously articulated by the Court and the "in common use at the time" prong of the Miller decision: since handguns are in common use, their ownership is protected.
The Court applies as remedy that "[a]ssuming that Heller is not disqualified from the exercise of Second Amendment rights, the District must permit him to register his handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in the home." The Court, additionally, hinted that other remedy might be available in the form of eliminating the license requirement for carry in the home, but that no such relief had been requested: "Respondent conceded at oral argument that he does not 'have a problem with ... licensing' and that the District's law is permissible so long as it is 'not enforced in an arbitrary and capricious manner.' Tr. of Oral Arg. 7475. We therefore assume that petitioners' issuance of a license will satisfy respondents prayer for relief and do not address the licensing requirement."
In regard to the scope of the right, the Court wrote, in an obiter dictum, "Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms."[47]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller#Second_Amendment_findings_and_reasoning_for_the_decision