Justices, Ruling 5-4, Endorse Personal Right to Own Gun
Summary
Overturning the District of Columbia ban on handguns, the Supreme Court, ruled that keeping and bearing a loaded gun at home for self-defense was a constitutional right.
The text then presents the conflicting views of Justice Scalia (representing the majority opinion) and of Justice Stevens (representing the dissenting opinion).
While Scalia acknowledges the problems caused by gun violence, he contends that the role of the Supreme Court is neither to rewrite the Constitution, nor to pronounce the second amendment extinct.
According to him (/ in his view), the militia reference in the prefatory section of the amendment does not intend to limit the scope of the amendment, but only reflect the Constitution’s Framers’ concern that the new Federal government should not try to disarm the people as the British government had tried to do previously.
As for Justice Stevens (/ Justice Stevens on the other hand), claims that Justice Scalia’s reading is a “strained” and unconvincing interpretation of the amendment.
If Stevens is to be believed, his own interpretation is the one that is fully respectful of the Constitution and of the original intention of the Founding Fathers, who had provided for the right to bear guns, but only when it was necessary to set up militias.
