On May 15, Law Shield saw where a federal judge upheld yet another gun ban in Washington, D.C. We’re amazed because this case, known unofficially as Heller II, brings back part of a gun ban that was struck down in 2008 by Heller I.
The most recent lawsuit challenging the District’s gun restrictions had Dick Anthony Heller returning as plaintiff, again suing the District of Columbia (Civil Action No. 08-1289), this time for its post-2008 regulations that banned large-capacity magazines and assault weapons. The city also imposed stringent registration requirements for handguns and long guns.
While noting that the Supreme Court struck down the District’s old handgun ban a few years back, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg concluded that “public safety is a substantial government interest” that served as a “powerful justification for the District’s gun-registration regime” and its ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
“The Constitution, in short, guarantees the right ‘to keep and bear arms,'” U.S. District Judge James Boasberg wrote, “not the right ‘to keep and bear an armory.'”
In fact, it was the District’s handgun ban that the Supreme Court struck down in District of Columbia v. Heller (Heller I), 554 U.S. 570 (2008), where the Court concluded that the Second Amendment protected handgun possession for self-defense in the home.
Judge Boasberg wrote, “The people of this city, acting through their elected representatives, have sought to combat gun violence and promote public safety. The Court finds that they have done so in a constitutionally permissible manner.”
Do you agree? Let us hear your thought below.
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