District of Columbia v. Heller
Citation
554 U.S. 570 (2008)
Facts
The District of Columbia banned handgun possession in the home and required lawfully owned firearms to be kept unloaded and disassembled or trigger-locked. Dick Heller, a special police officer authorized to carry a handgun on duty, applied to register a handgun to keep at home and was refused. He challenged the law as violating the Second Amendment.
Issue
Does the Second Amendment protect an individual right to possess firearms for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home, independent of service in a state militia?
Holding
Yes. The Supreme Court held, 5–4, that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for traditionally lawful purposes — particularly self-defense in the home — unconnected to militia service. DC’s handgun ban and trigger-lock requirement were unconstitutional.
Rule / Doctrine
Second Amendment individual right: the prefatory clause (“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State”) announces a purpose but does not limit the operative clause (“the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”). The right is not unlimited: regulations on carrying in sensitive places, prohibitions on felons and the mentally ill, and restrictions on dangerous/unusual weapons remain permissible.
Significance
Heller settled a long-running debate between individual-right and collective/militia-right theories of the Second Amendment. It extended the right to the home but left the standard of review unclear (suggesting it is not rational basis, without specifying higher tiers). McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010) incorporated the right against the states.