March 9 — A U.S. appeals court struck down a three-decade-old District of Columbia law that bans residents from keeping a handgun in their homes, saying the Constitution’s Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Washington also threw out a district law requiring registered firearms to be kept disassembled or under trigger lock.
It’s the first time a federal appeals court has struck down a gun-control measure on Second Amendment grounds. Nelson Lund, a constitutional law professor at George Mason University in neighboring Virginia, said an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is “very likely.”
“This is clearly an extremely significant ruling,” Lund said, “The District of Columbia had some of the most restrictive gun control laws in the country.’
The Second Amendment says, “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.”
Lawyers for the District of Columbia, which banned residents from owning handguns in 1976 for public safety reasons, argued that the amendment guarantees the right to bear arms only for members of a militia.