The Right to Bear Arms
Constitutional Law, Politics, and Public Health
- Lawrence Gostin, JD
- Author Affiliation: O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, DC.
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
- KEYWORDS:
- CIVIL RIGHTS
- DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
- FIREARMS
- LEGISLATION
- POLITICS
- PUBLIC HEALTH
- UNITED STATES
- WEAPONS
In District of Columbia v Heller, The Supreme Court held, for the first time in its history, that the Second Amendment grants an individual right to possess and use firearms for personal use, which encompasses the right to keep a loaded handgun at home for self-defense. Justice Scalia, writing for a bitterly divided court that split 5 to 4 along ideological lines, said that the Second Amendment “surely elevates above all other interests the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home.”1
The court thereby struck down a Washington, DC, law that bars registration of a handgun because, Scalia said, it prohibits a class of arms that “Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense.” The court similarly invalidated Washington, DC’s, requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock because it makes it “impossible …
