7/17/2007

D.C. to Appeal Circuit Court Decision Striking Down Gun Ban

This is a big role of the dice for both sides. One more retirement could make a big difference here.

Mayor Adrian Fenty announced today that he will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit striking down on Second Amendment grounds Washington, D.C.'s firearms ban. The Supreme Court has never definitively ruled on the Second Amendment, making the constitutionality of gun ownership among the most important unresolved questions in all of constitutional law.
The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Courts and legal scholars are sharply divided over the meaning of that language and whether it protects an individual right to keep and bear arms or merely a "collective" right of the states to arm their own citizen militias. If the Supreme Court agrees to review this case, Parker v. District of Columbia, it will be the first time the Court has considered the meaning of the Second Amendment in nearly 70 years. In the only prior case, U.S. v. Miller (1939), the Court did not provide a definitive interpretation of the Second Amendment.
"This case is enormously important, not only to the Parker plaintiffs and other D.C. residents, but to persons nationwide who care about the Constitution and the right to bear arms," said plaintiff's co-counsel and Cato Institute senior fellow Robert Levy. . . .

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