Washington, D.C. Files Brief In Supreme Court Gun Ban Case

Legal representatives of the District of Columbia have filed a 79-page brief with the U.S. Supreme Court that lays out their plans of how they will fight to have the present gun laws in the District sustained.

According to the Washington Times, their argument has three aspects.

The brief’s three-pronged argument says the Constitution protects only the rights of militias to bear firearms and not the rights of individuals. It says the amendment was only meant to restrict Congress from disarming state militias and does not constrain states from enacting firearms regulations.

The crux of their whole case is going to rest on what they believe to be the correct interpretation of the Second Amendment - that it does not guarantee an individual any right at all to own a gun. The Washington Post presents its version of how they think the three-pronged approach will be handled.

First, the brief says that the most reasonable reading of the first two clauses of the amendment is that it guarantees a right to gun ownership only in relation to some sort of military service.

“The Framers’ phrasing of the Second Amendment was in fact a natural way to protect a militia-related right,” the brief states.

Even if the court decides the amendment does protect an individual right, the brief says, it must be read as a restriction only on the federal government, to which it was aimed. “District-specific” legislation cannot “implicate the amendment’s purpose of protecting states and localities from the federal government.”

And if those first two arguments are decided against the city, the brief says, the court should uphold the restrictions as a reasonable response by the government to urban crime and a natural extension of what the brief says are gun-control laws that date back to when the District was the Town of Georgetown.

The District argues that their restrictions on gun bans are reasonable and does not restrict anyone from defending and protecting themselves. I sure wish they would explain how an individual is supposed to protect themselves with the laws that are in place.

“Where a legislature has articulated proper reasons for enacting a gun-control law, with meaningful supporting evidence, and that law does not deprive the people of reasonable means to defend themselves, it should be upheld,” District lawyers wrote in a 79-page brief.

However many approaches the lawyers for the District of Columbia believe they need to take, their task is monumental. They already are indicating that they might believe the Court will rule that the Second Amendment does guarantee an individual the right and therefore they are preparing to argue that even so, their restrictions are reasonable. With that I hope the court will find fault.

Many believe that the SCOTUS will rule in favor of upholding the lower court ruling earlier this year that said the gun ban was unconstitutional but will also rule that certain restrictions have to be expected. The wording of that ruling, should it come, will determine for how many decades following the courts we will be deciding what are reasonable restrictions.

The High Court is expected to hear the case sometime in March and could have a ruling as early as June. We must be reminded that this debate and the ruling will undoubtedly happen amidst the heat of a presidential campaign.

Tom Remington

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