First Principles: The relevance of District of Columbia v. Heller

June 26 marks 13 years since the Supreme Court delivered its landmark decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, ruling that the Second Amendment to the Constitution protects an individual right to bear arms and that the District of Columbia’s absolute ban on the possession of handguns was therefore unconstitutional.

Now more than a decade later, Heller will have a large influence in mounting a challenge to New York’s handgun law in the Supreme Court.

At issue in Heller was whether the Second Amendment guarantees citizens an individual right to own a firearm or rather that this right could only be exercised in regard to service in a militia.

Relying on extensive historical sources and other areas in the text of the Constitution, the court sided with the individual rights argument. The court’s opinion cited the Second Amendment’s operative clause, “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The court noted that the phrase, “the right of the people,” appears three other times in the First, Fourth, and Ninth Amendments to the Constitution.

As Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the court’s opinion, “All three of these instances unambiguously refer to individual rights, not ‘collective’ rights, or rights that may be exercised only through participation in some corporate body.”

Section 400.00 of the New York Penal Code requires that applicants seeking a permit to carry a concealed handgun in public must have a “proper cause” for wishing to do so, and the determination of whether an applicant has demonstrated proper cause is left to the discretion of the county’s issuing authority.

Previously, this requirement has been unsuccessfully challenged in court. In Klenosky v. N.Y. City Police Dept., the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court ruled that permit applicants must “sufficiently demonstrate a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community or of persons engaged in the same profession.”

Klenosky’s permit application was denied despite the fact that he was a practicing attorney who had received threats from dissatisfied clients, in addition to having an artificial leg which caused him to walk with a limp.

Last April, the Supreme Court agreed to hear New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Corlett in which two applicants in Rensselaer County were denied permits. One of the plaintiffs applied for a permit and took a firearm safety course after multiple robberies in his neighborhood, yet still had his application denied.

Reflecting on the ordinary use of language reveals that the potential unconstitutionality of New York’s “proper cause” provision is fairly clear. A “right” is something which can be done on one’s own accord, while things which can only be done through the grant of special permission are privileges. Additionally, the most basic definition of “to bear” is “to carry” which would indicate that the Second Amendment protects a citizen’s ability to carry a firearm for legitimate defense.

But a favorable ruling for the plaintiffs in NYSRPA v. Corlett would not mean the end of all firearm regulations. As Scalia stated in the Heller decision, “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.”

New York’s background check and character reference requirements for permits do not completely prevent a law-abiding citizen from carrying a handgun and therefore pose no intrinsic Constitutional conflict. But the fact that New York’s “proper cause” requirement allows applicants who meet all other qualifications to still be denied a permit solely upon the discretion of a government official reveals the problematic effects of many well-intentioned gun control measures; namely, that they prevent law-abiding citizens from defending themselves.

State and local governments have a legitimate interest in regulating firearms for matters of public safety, but as statistics show, gun control laws do not often succeed in preventing criminals from obtaining firearms. According to a 2019 Special Report by the US Department of Justice, “Source and Use of Firearms Involved in Crimes: Survey of Prison Inmates, 2016,” out of the estimated 287,400 prisoners who had possessed a firearm during their offense, 43% obtained it off the street or from the underground market, 25% had obtained it from a family member or friend, or as a gift, seven percent had found it at the scene of the crime, six percent had stolen it, and only seven percent had purchased it under their own name from a licensed firearm dealer.

On the other hand, civilian-owned firearms are used quite frequently in self-defense. According to the CDC, a range of 60,000 to 2.5 million defensive gun uses take place each year.

As a whole, the gun control debate involves two justified, though sometimes competing, interests in the self-defense of individuals and the safety of the public. Ensuring that New Yorkers who demonstrate their law-abiding habits and good character can exercise their constitutional rights is a reasonable compromise.