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deleted3782
Guest
Pretty interesting clarification from the US Supreme Court regarding gun rights. The court felt the District of Columbia's gun restrictions overreached their constitutionality...
New York Times
Published: June 27, 2008
WASHINGTON The Supreme Court declared for the first time on Thursday that the Constitution protects an individuals right to have a gun, not just the right of the states to maintain militias.
Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in the landmark 5-to-4 decision, said the Constitution does not allow the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home. In so declaring, the majority found that a gun-control law in the nations capital went too far by making it nearly impossible to own a handgun.
But the court held that the individual right to possess a gun for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose, Justice Scalia wrote.
The ruling does not mean, for instance, that laws against carrying concealed weapons are to be swept aside. Furthermore, Justice Scalia wrote, The courts opinion should not 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.
The decision upheld a federal appeals court ruling that the District of Columbias gun law, one of the strictest in the country, went beyond constitutional limits. Not only did the 1976 law make it practically impossible for an individual to legally possess a handgun in the district, but it also spelled out rules for the storage of rifles and shotguns. But the court did not articulate a specific standard of review for what might be a reasonable restraint on the right to possess a firearm.
For more, read here.
New York Times
Published: June 27, 2008
WASHINGTON The Supreme Court declared for the first time on Thursday that the Constitution protects an individuals right to have a gun, not just the right of the states to maintain militias.
Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in the landmark 5-to-4 decision, said the Constitution does not allow the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home. In so declaring, the majority found that a gun-control law in the nations capital went too far by making it nearly impossible to own a handgun.
But the court held that the individual right to possess a gun for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose, Justice Scalia wrote.
The ruling does not mean, for instance, that laws against carrying concealed weapons are to be swept aside. Furthermore, Justice Scalia wrote, The courts opinion should not 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.
The decision upheld a federal appeals court ruling that the District of Columbias gun law, one of the strictest in the country, went beyond constitutional limits. Not only did the 1976 law make it practically impossible for an individual to legally possess a handgun in the district, but it also spelled out rules for the storage of rifles and shotguns. But the court did not articulate a specific standard of review for what might be a reasonable restraint on the right to possess a firearm.
For more, read here.