Second Amendment Update: 3 Important U.S. Supreme Court Cases Clarify Hot-Button Gun Possession Issues

By Robert Phillips  
Deputy District Attorney (ret.) 

The Second Amendment Protects Convicted Felons in Their Right to Possess Firearms 

Second Amendment Update: Constitutionality of the federal “felon in possession of a firearm” statute (18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1))  

In the last quarter-century, the U.S. Supreme Court has made some giant steps forward in resolving hot-button issues related to the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms provision. To refresh your memory, the Second Amendment provides as follows:  

     “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not  be infringed.”  

But recognizing that none of the protections provided in the Bill of Rights is absolute, the Supreme Court has attempted to draw a line for us mere mortals, showing us when we may, and  may not, possess or carry firearms.  

On the issue of what the Second Amendment really means, the High Court has decided at least three very important cases in the past 16 years:  

District of Columbia v. Heller, 2008 

First, District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) 554 U.S. 570, in finding unconstitutional a Washington D.C. statute, the court held that there is a constitutionally protected right to the possession of an operable handgun in one’s home, allowing for a firearm to be readily available for self-defense. The court told us that the Second Amendment protects everyone’s right to possess a firearm despite the perhaps confusing language in the amendment where it says that a “well-regulated militia” is “necessary to the security of a free state.”  In Heller, the court held that this right is in fact unconnected to whether you actually serve in a “militia,” or the military.  

In dissecting the Second Amendment, phrase by phrase, and interpreting the historical significance of each, the court finally explains for us (pages 595-596) that the provision for a “well-regulated militia” merely refers to the fact that at the time of the writing of the U.S. Constitution, “the militia (was) comprised ....

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