The Second Amendment: D.C.'s Gun Law Struck Down

The city of Washington, D.C., has long had one of the nation's strictest (if not the strictest) gun laws in place. Specifically, unless someone in D.C. has a handgun that was registered prior to 1976, handguns are banned. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit struck down that provision, declaring that it violated the Second Amendment. The court said that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms. The Second Amendment reads,

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

This has always been a thorny issue for this country, as people have disagreed as to the exact meaning of the amendment. Some have held that, as the amendment refers to a "militia", this does not mean an individual necessarily has the right to a gun. Others, including the court in this opinion, have interpreted it to mean just the opposite.

On balance, I find that the amendment appears to read more closely to those who believe that an individual does not have the right to own a gun. This does not mean, of course, that a state (or any part of the government) could not permit individuals to own guns. Therefore, I've always found the arguments of the NRA and similar groups to be a little exaggerated, as most states do little-to-nothing to prevent any kind of gun ownership (heck, even the federal government has allowed its assault weapons ban to lapse). Moreover, the majority of people appear to be opposed to strict bans on guns (except for the assault weapons ban, which was allowed to lapse anyway).

However, the strangest part of this, I find, is that the groups are reversed on their interpretation of the amendment. Liberals want a strict interpretation -- the word "militia" is taken literally for their understanding. Conservatives, on the other hand, want a looser interpretation, in which the original intent of the amendment is clearly tossed aside. I mean that last part rather seriously because the original intent of the amendment is laid out rather succinctly by the framers in the opening clause of the amendment (i.e. "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State"). This does not mean conservatives are wrong; I would just like it if they admitted that they are not actually strict constructionists. Now, perhaps, someone could engage in a little semantic sleight of hand to try to carry the strict constructionist argument, but the problem with that is that any such rhetorical tricks are precisely the opposite of strict constructionism.

Having read enough George Will and Charles Krauthammer to know how much they despise the supposed invention of the "right to privacy", I would like them to write columns hammering on the individual right to own a gun as an invented right. Of course, the right to privacy is not an elucidated right. Rather, it is an inferred right and, in fact, certain parts of the Constitution (e.g. a ban on unreasonable searches) would make little sense if people did not have the right to privacy. Similarly, one could argue that it is not clear who would belong in the militia, and thus could own guns, and who would not, as we no longer have "militia" in the sense that the original founders did.

It would, therefore, be tremendously valuable and helpful if people stopped pretending that they interpret the Constitution according to some high and mighty principle and, similarly, stopped accusing courts of engaging in judicial activism (wouldn't today's ruling fall under that category?). Such "principled appeals" and absurd accusations are almost always based on the desired outcome, rather than any serious principles, of the person claiming such principles or leveling such accusations.