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The
District of Columbia v. Heller ruling still looms large today because it left open a lot of questions that are now at issue. Consider semi-automatic weapons like the
AR-15 rifle, which has been used in a number of high-profile shootings, including the deadly massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012. Are bans on this kind of weapon allowed under
Heller?
On Monday, the Supreme Court let Connecticut’s ban on such weapons remain. It did the same in December after
an effort to overturn a similar ban in Highland Park, Illinois. That doesn’t mean the court is embracing these bans, only that it’s put off ruling on them to another day. If the court takes them up, and at some point it surely will, its decision will come back to Scalia’s famous opinion in the
Heller case.
And how the justices would rule on the constitutionality of owning an AR-15 is up in the air. Despite his deserved conservative reputation, Scalia left some gifts for liberals in his
Heller ruling. He wrote that the right to bear arms had limits. “Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”
The late justice also more generally offered the belief that
“like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.” It is “not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” For instance, Scalia said concealment laws were permitted at the time of the Constitution’s ratification and should be permitted today.
The issue that Scalia left future courts to grapple with is what constitutes a protected weapon. He wrote that the Constitution protects weapons that could be carried and were in common use. What he didn’t say in the opinion—and what the court has deferred ruling on—is whether an AR-15 fits the bill for a common weapon. On one hand, it’s certainly not rare. There are more than a million in circulation. On the other hand, it’s not as ubiquitous as ordinary rifles and handguns. At some point, the John Roberts court will wrestle with the questions Scalia left unanswered, or the justices will leave it to the political process."
http://www.newsweek.com/antonin-sca...rt-orlando-shooting-newtown-sandy-hook-472460
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