D.C. v. Heller: Acknowledging Constitutional Rights

The Supreme Court just released its 5 -4 decision in D.C. v. Heller. Speaking for the majority of the Supremes, Justice Scalia strikes down the District of Columbia's ban on handguns and requirement that shotguns and rifles be disassembled, declaring that the Constitution does not permit "the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home."

More importantly, the decision states that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is an individual right and not a group right, making the militia portion of the clause rather meaningless in relation to the bear arms part of the clause. Preamble, Smeamble I guess.

The syllabus of the decision states:

The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditional lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.

This does not mean that all gun bans would be unconstitutional. I have not heard what what level of scrutiny will be required to review whether or not a gun ban is or is not constitutional.

There is more than enough historical evidence to support the majority's claim that the second amendment is an individual's right. For example, before the states ratified the second amendment, Pennsylvania possessed a similar amendment and the state did not have a militia, which would mean that the right was an individual right.

But the conflict here exists between principle and consequence: what can communities do when gun violence plagues society as was the case in D.C. though I am unsure if the D.C. law in question reduced the amount of violence in the District.

Update: Last week in the Guantanamo case, Justice Scalia declared that the Court's decision would "cause more Americans to be killed." Over at Slate, Dahlia Lithwick, via professor Stephen Wermiel from American University, wonders why the dissenting Justices in Heller did not use the same argument and declare that striking down the ban in D.C. will "will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."