Held:
1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a
firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for
traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.
Pp. 253.
(a) The Amendments prefatory clause announces a purpose, but
does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative
clause. The operative clauses text and history demonstrate that it
connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms.
This is what I wanted to see. This is awesome.
(f) None of the Courts precedents forecloses the Courts interpretation.
Neither United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 553, nor
Presser v. Illinois, 116 U. S. 252, 264265, refutes the individualrights
interpretation. United States v. Miller, 307 U. S. 174, does not
limit the right to keep and bear arms to militia purposes, but rather
limits the type of weapon to which the right applies to those used by
the militia, i.e., those in common use for lawful purposes.
That language is even better than what I had hoped for. This is a great day for liberty and for America!
If those phrases are written into the majority decision,
that’s a HUUUUUUUUUU(GH)GE WIN!
That seems like pretty strong language.
We know of no other enumerated constitutional right whose core protection has been subjected to a freestanding interest-balancing approach. The very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of governmenteven the Third Branch of Governmentthe power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon. A constitutional guarantee subject to future judges assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional guarantee at all. Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them, whether or not future legislatures or (yes) even future judges think that scope too broad. We would not apply an interest-balancing approach to the prohibition of a peaceful neo-Nazi march through Skokie. See National Socialist Party of America v. Skokie, 432 U. S. 43 (1977) (per curiam). The First Amendment contains the freedom-of-speech guarantee that the people ratified, which included exceptions for obscenity, libel, and disclosure of state secrets, but not for the expression of extremely unpopular and wrong-headed views. The Second Amendment is no different. Like the First, it is the very product of an interest-balancing by the peoplewhich JUSTICE BREYER would now conduct for them anew."