Supreme Court Strikes Down Washington Gun Ban

The Supreme Court voted 5-to-4 to strike down Washington, D.C.’s municipal ban on handguns, ruling that the ban violated the Second Amendment, as I expected it would. 

Since most voters agree with the decision, politicians who earlier supported the D.C. gun ban are now flip-flopping to disavow their past support for it.

Critics of the ruling claim that it is “judicial activism,” a silly claim that I earlier debunked.   The Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy rebuts D.C.’s arguments in favor of the ban here.

I earlier explained why the Supreme Court should reject the argument that the right to bear arms is just a “collective right” possessed by state militias, rather than an individual right, and how D.C. residents seek guns in self-defense because of the D.C. government’s repeated failure to protect crime victims from violence and aggression.

The Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller upheld a federal appeals court ruling that likewise declared the D.C. gun ban unconstitutional. Much of the criticism of that ruling was hypocritical, as I earlier explained.