by:
“Handgun possession is banned under District of Columbia (D) law. The law prohibits the registration of handguns and makes it a crime to carry an unregistered firearm. Furthermore all lawfully owned firearms must be kept unloaded and dissembled or bound by a trigger lock unless they are being used for lawful recreational activities or located in a place of business.”
“Dick Heller (P) is a special police officer in the District of Columbia. The District refused Heller’s application to register a handgun he wished to keep in his home. Heller filed this lawsuit in the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia on Second Amendment grounds. Heller sought an injunction against enforcement of the bar on handgun registration, the licensing requirement prohibiting the carrying of a firearm in the home without a license, and the trigger-lock requirement insofar as it prohibits the use of functional firearms within the home.”
“The District Court dismissed Heller’s complaint. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed and directed the District Court to enter summary judgment in favor of the District of Columbia. The Court of Appeals construed Heller’s complaint as seeking the right to render a firearm operable and carry it in his home only when necessary for self defense, and held that the total ban on handguns violated the individual right to possess firearms under the Second Amendment.”
Heller was concerned for his safety at home because over the years his area had gone from a family friendly one to a drug and crime infested neighborhood. He sought the right to legally have a handgun operational and ready in his home at all times for his own protection. Keeping a gun unloaded with trigger lock or disassembled renders a gun useless for self-defense.
The Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment does provide an individual the right to own a firearm for the purpose of self-defense in the home. They also ruled that the DC ban on all handgun possession amounted to a prohibition on an entire class of arms and in lieu of the fact that handguns are the most favored means of armed self-defense in the home, the ban was unconstitutional. Additionally, the high court stated that the requirement of trigger locks and keeping the handgun disassembled violated the Second Amendment right of owning a gun for self-defense in the home.
However, on Monday, the Supreme Court refused to hear a lawsuit challenging a San Francisco ordinance that requires all handguns be kept in a locked case or have a trigger lock in place. The only exception would be to allow anyone living in the home that is 18 years old or older to physically carry the gun on them while in the home.
Several gun owners in the San Francisco filed a lawsuit challenging the city’s ordinance claiming it violated their Second Amendment rights. A key part of their argument was the 2008 Supreme Court ruling in the Heller case which stated such a law clearly violated a gun owner’s Second Amendment rights.
The lower courts all ruled in favor of the city and against the gun owners, so they tried to take their case to the Supreme Court, figuring they would uphold their previous ruling in the Heller case and overturn the city’s ordinance. It takes at least four Supreme Court justices to agree to hear a case, but this case only garnered the support of two of the nine justices, meaning they would not hear arguments and did not have to give a reason for their refusal.
Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas both voted to hear the case. When the rest of the justices refused to hear the case, Thomas said that lower courts’ decision to uphold the San Francisco ordinance was in ‘serious tension with Heller. He wrote:
“Despite the clarity with which we described the Second Amendment’s core protection for the right of self-defense, lower courts, including the ones here, have failed to protect it.”The Supreme Court’s denial to uphold their own ruling now sets a precedent that will prompt many other cities, counties and states to pass unconstitutional anti-gun laws that will make it illegal for anyone to protect themselves in their own homes using a handgun.
The idea that someone can obtain a permit to own a handgun for self-defense in their own home but that handgun has to be unloaded and locked up is asinine and stupid. Do they expect you to tell an intruder to wait while you unlock and load your gun before they assault you or your family? That’s the same as saying that you can own a car for emergency purposes but you have to take the wheels off to insure that no one steals or uses your vehicle for non-emergency purposes. By the time you put all four wheels back on the car, it’s probably too late.
Yes, be warned that the liberals throughout the nation will be jumping on the opportunity to deny you of your constitutional rights to defend yourself and your family in your own home.
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