On March 18, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in District of Columbia v. Heller, a case challenging handgun-control statutes adopted in 1976 in Washington, D.C. The question before the Court is whether the District's prohibition of further registration of handguns, its ban on the carrying of concealed guns, and its mandate that guns kept in homes remain unloaded and either locked or disassembled violate citizens' rights that are guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the Constitution.
What we do about handguns is of course a question of public policy. Because of the Second Amendment, it is also a question of constitutional law. And the point of constitutional law is to make it difficult for us to adopt some policies that seem to us to be good ones at the moment. The Supreme Court's upcoming decision in District of Columbia v. Heller dramatizes the tension between public policy and the Constitution.
Language: en
LA - en SN - 0028-4793 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp0801601 ID - ref1 ER -