District Of Columbia V. Heller Case Study

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On Thursday June 26 of the year 2008, The U.S. supreme issued a ruling regarding the District of Columbia v. Heller case. For the past 32 years, handguns in the District of Columbia were banned, a response to the gun-related murders. However in a close 5-4, with judges John Roberts, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas and justice Antonin Scalia voting for it vote the Supreme Court ruled that ban of the handgun was in violation of the Second Amendment and thus unconstitutional. Justices John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer, along with liberals Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter, voted no. This was the first time in the history of the Supreme Court that a gun law was ruled unconstitutional using the controversial and vague Second Amendment. As …show more content…
found that, out of a group of 1035 adults 67% of the group responded that they believe that Second Amendment included the right of individual people to own and use guns. Curiously, only 30% of the respondents thought that the Second Amendment gave the people the right to form a militia.
As a result of the ruling the supreme courts created a precedent that laws the a ban weapons in other states would not hold up if it was brought in front of a court, like Breyer feared. As such, Wayne LaPierre, a member of the National Rifle Association, or NRA said that his organization will be bringing court challenges to gun-control laws in Chicago and San Francisco.
In conclusion, the Federal government showed it power to override state laws. Specifically the Judicial branch’s power with matters that the constitution describes. The pro-gun side of mostly republicans including judges John Roberts, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, justice Antonin Scalia, Wayne LaPierre, Dick Heller and George W. Bush benefited from this ruling while the pro gun-control side of mostly democrats including Justices John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer, liberals Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter, suffered from the

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