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The Right Opinion

Washington, DC, residents, you dont have to holster your Second Amendment rights anymore. Unfortunately, residents of many other states like California dont have the same ability that DC residents now do to protect themselves.

In a stirring victory for those who live in the nationals capital, a panel of the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals recently threw out a DC ordinance that denied concealed carry permits to anyone who could not show a special need for self-defense, what is referred to as a good reason requirement. The problem is that other courts of appeal have upheld such restrictive laws and the U.S. Supreme Court has turned down appeals of those decisions, refusing to take up the issue of the Second Amendments application to carrying a weapon outside of the home.

This happened most recently at the very end of the Supreme Courts 2017 term in June when it refused to take upPeruta v. California,an appeal of a decision of the Ninth Circuit upholding Californias good reason requirement.

In a scathing dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas (joined by Neil Gorsuch) castigated the other justices for treating the Second Amendment as a disfavored right."He said it was long-past time for the Court to decide this issue and that he found it "extremely improbable that the Framers understood the Second Amendment to protect little more than carrying a gun from the bedroom to the kitchen.

In theopinionover the District of Columbias concealed carry law written by Judge Thomas Griffith of the DC Circuit, Griffith pointed out that the U.S. Supreme Courts first in-depth examination of the Second Amendment occurred in 2008 inDistrict of Columbia v. Heller, where the Court threw out DCs complete ban on handguns as unconstitutional.

That decision is younger than the first iPhone. The Supreme Court did not outline how the Second Amendment applies to the carrying of a weapon in public, but as Griffith says,Hellerreveals the Second Amendment erects some absolute barriers than no gun law may breach.

AfterHeller,DC implemented a complete ban on concealed carry. That was struck down in 2014 inPalmer v. District of Columbia. DC responded by restricting concealed carry permits only to those who could show a good reason to fear injury. That required showing a special need for self-protection distinguishable from the general community as supported by evidence of specific threats or previous attacks.

Living in a high-crime neighborhoodwasnta good enough reason for a concealed carry permit under DCs regulation. In essence, you had to prove you had a good reason to exercise your constitutional right, a bizarre situation unique in American constitutional jurisprudence.

DC argued, absurdly enough, that its ordinance did not violate any constitutional right because the Second Amendment doesnt apply outside of the home.

Judge Griffith dismissed this claim, saying that the fact that the need for self-defense is most pressing in the home doesnt mean that self-defense at home is the only right at the [Second] Amendments core.

Obviously, the need for self-defense might arise beyond as well as within the home. Further, the Second Amendments text protects the right to bear as well as keep arms. Thus, it is natural that the core of the Second Amendment includes a law-abiding citizens right to carry common firearms for self-defense beyond the home.

Even underHeller, governments can apply regulations on the possession and carrying of firearms that are longstanding, such as bans on possession by felons or bans on carrying near sensitive sites such as government buildings. But preventing carrying in public is not a longstanding tradition or rule.

This opinion goes into detail discussing the long American and English history applicable to weapons and self-defense, going back as far as the Statute of Northampton of 1328 whose text, as the court says, will remind Anglophiles of studying Canterbury Tales in the original. But the state of the law in Chaucers England or for that matter Shakespeares or Cromwells is not decisive here.

What is decisive is that the Supreme Court established inHellerthat by the time of the Founding, the preexisting right enshrined by the Amendment had ripened to include carrying more broadly than the District contends based on its reading of the 14th-century statute. According to Griffith, The individual right to carry common firearms beyond the home for self-defense even in densely populated areas, even for those lacking special self-defense needs falls within the core of the Second Amendments protections.

Unfortunately, other federal courts of appeals have upheld similar good reason laws for concealed carry permits. But as Judge Griffith points out, those courts dispensed with the historic digging that would have exposed that their toleration of regulations restricting the carrying of a weapon is faulty.

The constitutional analysis that should be applied to all government gun regulations is that they must allow gun access at least for each typical member of the American public. Because DCs restrictive good reason concealed carry law bars most people from exercising their Second Amendment right at all, it is unconstitutional. At a minimum, the Second Amendment must protect carrying given the risks and needs typical of law-abiding citizens.

The court drew together all the pieces of its analysis in this way:

At the Second Amendments core lies the right of responsible citizens to carry firearms for personal self-defense beyond the home, subject to longstanding restrictions. These traditional limits include, for instance, licensing requirements, but not bans on carrying in urban areas like D.C. or bans on carrying absent a special need for self-defense. In fact, the Amendments core at a minimum shields the typically situated citizens ability to carry common arms generally. The Districts good-reason law is necessarily a total ban on exercises of that constitutional right for most D.C. residents. Thats enough to sink this law under Heller I.

One of the judges on the DC panel, Karen LeCraft Henderson, dissented, arguing that the core right in the Second Amendment is only to possess a firearm in ones home and she saw no problem with DCs good-reason requirement.

That dissent, along with the contrary decisions of other appeals courts, shows why the Supreme Court needs to follow Justice Thomass admonition and finally settle this issue. As Thomas scolds in his dissent inPeruta:

For those of us who work in marble halls, guarded constantly by a vigilant and dedicated police force, the guarantees of the Second Amendment might seem antiquated and superfluous. But the Framers made a clear choice: They reserved to all Americans the right to bear arms for self-defense. I do not think we should stand by idly while a State denies its citizens that right, particularly when their very lives may depend on it.

Republished from The Heritage Foundation.

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