Constitutional Law

District court rulings post-Heller

The Volokh Conspiracy has discussions of Industrious v. Cauley, and US v. Yanecy, both prohibited person prosecutions.

Industrious strangely cites the Parker Court of Appeals dissent as if it was the rule of Heller -- and botches the dissent at that (seeming to think it means the 2A only applies in DC, when the dissent claimed the 2A didn't apply in DC).

Yancey suggests that we'll see a return of what happened in Lopez: lower courts taking a Supreme Court ruling that they dislike and treating it as incredibly narrow (in that case's aftermath, finding that the ruling only applies to firearms possessed in a school zone, since the ruling mentioned that schools were traditionally a State/local matter, and refusing to extend its limitations on the commerce power to any other setting).

The holding is hardly exceptional: the 2A doesn't forbid laws against possessing guns while using illicit drugs. But the language, "Heller stands only for the proposition that the District of Columbia cannot constitutionally ban handgun possession in the home for use in self-defense by persons not otherwise prohibited from gun possession" is what gives concern.

Full post as published by Of Arms and the Law on October 07, 2008 (boomark / email).