## Facts

- The District of Columbia regulated firearms by (1) effectively barring handgun registration, (2) requiring a license to carry a handgun, and (3) requiring lawfully owned firearms in the home to be kept unloaded and disassembled or secured by a trigger lock.
- Dick Anthony Heller, a D.C. special police officer authorized to carry a handgun while on duty, applied to register a handgun he sought to keep in his home.
- The District denied the registration request under its handgun restrictions.
- Heller sued to enjoin enforcement of the handgun registration ban, the home-carry licensing restriction, and the trigger-lock requirement as applied to firearms kept for self-defense in the home.
- The district court dismissed the complaint.
- The D.C. Circuit held the Second Amendment protects an individual right and struck down the handgun ban and the requirement that firearms in the home be kept nonfunctional.
- The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review whether the challenged provisions violated the Second Amendment.

## Issues

1. Whether the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms unconnected with service in a militia.
2. Whether a jurisdiction may categorically prohibit possession of handguns in the home.
3. Whether a requirement that lawfully owned firearms in the home be kept nonfunctional violates the Second Amendment, including when needed for self-defense.
4. Whether recognizing an individual right forecloses firearm regulation and, if not, what types of regulations remain permissible.

## Decision

- The Court affirmed the D.C. Circuit in a 5–4 decision.
- The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with militia service and to use arms for traditionally lawful purposes, including self-defense in the home.
- The District’s effective ban on handgun possession in the home violated the Second Amendment because it prohibited an entire class of arms commonly chosen for lawful self-defense.
- The trigger-lock/disablement requirement violated the Second Amendment because it prevented functional use of firearms for self-defense in the home.
- The Court stated the right is not unlimited and did not invalidate all firearm regulation.

## Legal Principles

- The Second Amendment’s operative clause secures “the right of the people,” which the Court read as denoting an individual right.
- The prefatory militia clause announces a purpose but does not confine the operative guarantee to militia service.
- “Keep arms” encompasses possession, and “bear arms” encompasses carrying weapons for lawful purposes that include self-defense.
- The Second Amendment protects a core right of law-abiding citizens to possess a functional firearm in the home for self-defense.
- The right is subject to “presumptively lawful” longstanding regulations, including prohibitions on possession by felons and the mentally ill, restrictions on carrying in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, and conditions on commercial sale.
- A regulation that makes firearms in the home inoperable for self-defense, or that functions as a categorical ban on commonly used arms, violates the Second Amendment.

## Conclusion

The Court held that the Second Amendment secures an individual right to possess and use a functional firearm—particularly a handgun—for self-defense in the home, invalidating D.C.’s handgun ban and its requirement that home firearms be kept nonfunctional, while recognizing that longstanding regulatory measures may remain valid.


District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008)