D.C. Appeals Court Ruling Holds Second Amendment Protects 'Individual Right'

    BELLEVUE, Wash., March 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A ruling Friday by
 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that strikes down
 the District's 1976 handgun ban and holds that the Second Amendment
 protects an individual right to keep and bear arms is "a landmark for
 liberty, and an affirmation that everything the gun rights community has
 been saying for years is correct," the Second Amendment Foundation said
 today.
     The 2-1 ruling came in the case of Parker v. District of Columbia.
 Senior Judge Laurence H. Silberman wrote the opinion, with Judge Thomas B.
 Griffith concurring. Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson dissented. The ruling
 holds that the District's long-standing ban on carrying a pistol in the
 home for personal protection is unconstitutional. SAF filed an amicus brief
 in the case.
     In his ruling, Judge Silberman wrote, "In sum, the phrase 'the right of
 the people,' when read intratextually and in light of Supreme Court
 precedent, leads us to conclude that the right in question is individual."
     "This is a huge victory for firearm civil rights," said SAF founder
 Alan M. Gottlieb. "It shreds the so-called 'collective right theory' of gun
 control proponents, and squarely puts the Second Amendment where it has
 always belonged, as a protection of the individual citizen's right to have
 a firearm for personal defense."
     Judge Silberman's ruling notes that the Second Amendment "acknowledges
 ... a right that pre-existed the Constitution like 'the freedom of
 speech'."
     "Because the right to arms existed prior to the formation of the new
 government," Judge Silberman wrote, "the Second Amendment only guarantees
 that the right 'shall not be infringed'."
     Silberman's ruling also observed, "The right of self-preservation ...
 was understood as the right to defend oneself against attacks by lawless
 individuals, or, if absolutely necessary, to resist and throw off a
 tyrannical government."
     "Judge Silberman's ruling," Gottlieb said, "reverses 31 years of
 unconstitutional infringement on the rights of District of Columbia
 residents, not only to keep and bear arms, but to be safe and secure in
 their own homes. This is a ruling that should make all citizens proud that
 we live in a nation where the rights of individual citizens trump political
 correctness."
     The ruling may be viewed at:
 http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/docs/common/opinions/200703/04-7041a.pdf
     SAF has also mirrored the decision on our site at
 http://www.saf.org/dc.lawsuit/parker.decision.pdf
     The Second Amendment Foundation (http://www.saf.org) is the nation's
 oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal
 action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately
 own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more
 than 600,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to
 better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.
 
 

SOURCE Second Amendment Foundation