Parker v. District of Columbia

On March 9, 2007, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. issued a blockbuster opinion in Parker v. District of Columbia holding that “the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms.” That right is “not limited to militia service, nor is an individual’s enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or her continued or intermittent enrollment in the militia.” With that historic proclamation, the D.C. Circuit became the first federal appellate court to overturn a gun regulation on Second Amendment grounds.

Parker is now the perfect candidate for U.S. Supreme Court review: (1) The appellate court’s opinion is outstanding. (2) D.C. has the most draconian gun laws in the nation coupled with the highest rate of gun violence. (3) Because D.C. is controlled by federal law, the applicability of the Second Amendment to the states is not an issue. (4) D.C. is an appropriate venue for all lawsuits challenging federal gun laws. And most important, if Parker is not reviewed by the Supreme Court, a future anti-gun Court will likely find a case with a criminal as the poster boy for gun-owners’ rights. Now is the time for an unequivocal pronouncement from the Supreme Court about the real meaning of the Second Amendment.