D.C. Circuit Strikes Down D.C. Gun Control Laws

The Supreme Court has avoided the sticky issue of the meaning of the Second Amendment for nearly 70 years. But after today, it might be difficult for the Court to duck any longer. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit today struck down D.C.'s strict gun control law on Second Amendment grounds. Senior Judge Laurence Silberman wrote the ruling in Parker v. District of Columbia, joined by Thomas Griffith, with a dissent by Karen LeCraft Henderson.

Silberman's 58-page majority is a detailed argument in favor of the view that the awkwardly-worded Second Amendment grants an individual right to bear arms, rather than a group or militia right that many commentators and courts have hung onto for years. Conservative Silberman even invokes Harvard Law School's liberal Laurence Tribe, whose views have shifted toward the individual rights analysis in recent years. Henderson's dissent dismisses the majority as "superfluity" because under her view, the Second Amendment applies only to states -- not to the District of Columbia. Assuming that D.C. appeals the decision and the D.C. Circuit denies en banc review, the hot-potato case could be before the Supreme Court sometime next year. What happens then is anyone's guess. More can be read by going to LegalTimes.com.

Comments

[Marc]

The decision avoids a number of isssues. First what about carrying a handgun outside of one's place of residence. Second, how do you get the gun home without carrying it outside. And third presumably the DC laws requiring registration of a firearm and of ammunition are still valid