DC v Heller 2008

The Supreme Court and Gun Rights

District of Columbia v. Heller, (2008), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court ruling that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms, unconnected with service in a militia, for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home, and that the District of Columbia's handgun ban and requirement that lawfully owned rifles and shotguns be kept "unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock" violated this guarantee. It also stated that the right to bear arms is not unlimited and that guns and gun ownership would continue to be regulated. It was the first Supreme Court case to decide whether the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense or if the right was intended for state militias.

McDonald v. Chicago, (2010), is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that found that the right of an individual to "keep and bear arms," as protected under the Second Amendment, is incorporated by either the Due Process Clause or Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and is thereby enforceable against the states. The decision cleared up the uncertainty left in the wake of District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) as to the scope of gun rights in regard to the states.