Today, March 9, the Appeals Court in the District of Columbia overturned a District of Columbia law that would prohibit residents from owning firearms (specifically, handguns) in their home for defensive purposes. DC residents, as those in the Capitol Hill area and various NW areas, especially in the LGBT community, have sometimes reported that gun ownerhip could save their lives and protect them given circumstances in their own neighborhoods.
The Court held that the Second Amendment should not be construed as meaning that one must be a member of a militia to own defensive weapons. There are obscure federal laws that actually defined able-bodied males 17-45 as members of the militia, although they have not been significant in modern times. 2nd Amendment issues have long become among the most important to libertarians.
CNN had a legal debate the next day, with Mr. Avery suggesting that the case will be reheard en banc by the DC Circuit, and that it was most likely that an en banc court would restore the law, to be consistent with 70 years of tradition that accepts the idea of the 2nd Amendment as partially associated with actual "militia" participation. The DC Circuit has reheard cases en banc before, as in 1994 when midshipman Joe Steffan's challenge to his ouster from the US Naval Academy for "admitting homosexuality" was reheard and the government "won." The ruling came down on a Friday, a bit unusual.
The case is called Shelly Parker v. D.C., and the Opinion is available at the Court's web site here.
The Washington Post story is by Bill Miller and Robert Barnes, "Appeals Court Guts D.C. Gun Ban," at this link.
Update: 3/21/2007
The DC Examiner has an editorial on p 18, "District gun ban ruling is a victory for common sense," on p. 18, March 21. The link is here. The piece points out Lawrence Silberman 's comment that the Second Amendment is bifurcated with a comma splice, the first portion ("well-regulated militia") simply establishes that the people need the ability to protect themselves and their property, and this explains why the government should not infringe on the right of individual people to protect themselves (with firearms when necessary). The editorial makes a comparison to the First Amendment, where conventional wisdom (and "judicial activism") of 70 years on the Second Amendment would, if applied to free speech, allow the government to set up "speech groups" first through which people could speak publicly (imagine that with the Internet!) The editorial even goes to apply this sort of reasoning to District of Columbia self-government (posting ahead, on Saturday March 17), claiming that "judicial activism" could assert that DC residents don't have the same individual rights as the citizens of the actual fifty states, so gun control could be imposed on the District's citizens anyway.
Update: 4/10/2007
The District of Columbia has appealed for an en banc rehearing by the full circuit. In the meantime, the law remains in effect.
Update: 4/19/2007
Of course, it's only fair to add that some commentators point out that the 2nd Amendment is the only one that spells out that a "right" needs to be "regulated" (a "well regulated militia" is part of the text). That could be taken as an argument for residential gun control.
In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech tragedy on 4/16, there has been debate about various state laws regarding history of mental illness when someone applies for a permit. In some states (like Virginia) an involuntary commitment would disqualify someone for a license whereas a voluntary commitment might not. Although I have no interest in buying a gun now and I do not live in the District (and I add that I might be very converned if I did live alone in the District), and I am not sure of DC laws on that, I would wonder if my "commitment" to National Institutes of Health for psychiatric consultation after my "expulsion" from college in 1961 (this is a long story, covered in other blog entries, books and websites) would disqualify me from the ability to defend myself if at some point I thought I needed it. Many people argue that they need to be able to defend themselves (and often their families)from intruders or other breaches because law enforcement cannot protect everyone. When I was in graduate school in the mid 1960s, some students even they claimed that they should have the right to defend themselves, even though Vietnam was going on and there was an anti-military mood as a whole.
Gay men in some cities carry mace in neighborhoods near bars (that is illegal in DC), and often express the sentiment that they want the legal right to defend themselves (with weapons if necessary) when on the street. Until establishments in SE Washington were closed for the baseball Washington Nationals' Stadium construction and related real estate development, there was often a lot of aggressive panhandling ("parked car protection" extortion) and other weapons and drug trafficking in the area, and sometimes patrons to the establishments claimed that they wanted to be able to defend themselves.
Update: 05/09/2007
The full circuit of the Appeals Court turned down the request for an en banc hearing today.
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