Lawyers representing Dick Anthony Heller filed their first brief with the U.S. Supreme Court Monday in support of their effort to overturn D.C.’s gun ban, which they deem the “most draconian infringements of Second Amendment rights.”
Alan Gura, arguing his first case before the high court, issued the reply in response to the District’s filing early last month. Gura argued that the Second Amendment “plainly protects” an individual right to keep and bear arms — the debate at the heart of the gun control fight and the Heller case in particular.
“If the possession of handguns is protected by the Second Amendment, handguns cannot be completely banned, however else the government may regulate their possession and use,” Gura wrote in the 82-page brief.
Heller is a private security guard who carries a handgun at work but is not allowed to take the weapon home. D.C. bans handguns outright and requires that all other weapons are dismantled.
“I’m fighting for the constitutional right of law-abiding individuals who live in dangerous communities to have a firearm to protect themselves and their families from rampant violent crime,” Heller said on Gura’s blog.
The District’s gun ban was dismissed as unconstitutional last March by a lower court. Once the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, it became perhaps the most important Second Amendment battleground in 70 years. Oral arguments are slated for March 18. D.C. has argued that the Second Amendment speaks only to state militias, not individuals. The 30-year-old law is “manifestly reasonable” and was instituted at the people’s request, the city maintains, to promote public safety.
“As recent history demonstrates,” Gura responded, “those who would attack our capital are hardly deterred by Petitioners’ ban on handguns and functional firearms in the home.”
Former U.S. Solicitor General Walter Dellinger is leading the District’s legal team. Peter Nickles, D.C.’s attorney general, declined comment.
