A federal judge on Friday upheld gun control ordinances in Washington D.C. that were put into place after the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision that overturned the city’s handgun ban.
Dick Heller — the plaintiff who challenged the handgun ban — brought a suit claiming the city’s gun laws, which include registration requirements and an assault weapon ban, violated the Second Amendment. Judge Ricardo Urbina said the right to bear arms is not unlimited, Legal Times reports.
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He cited Justice Antonin Scalia’s admonition that the Court’s decision, while declaring an individual right to bear arms, did not “cast doubt” on a range of firearms regulations. Urbina said he was applying “intermediate scrutiny” to D.C.’s new ordinances, and under that standard, he concluded the regulations were permissible because they serve the District’s “important governmental interest” in public safety.
Gun control advocates lauded the decision. Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence said in a statement that the ruling showed the Second Amedment allows for common sense gun laws. “Once again, the courts have rejected the gun lobby’s attempt to transform the core right to guns in the home for self-defense into a mandate for their ‘any gun, anywhere’ agenda,” he said.
Heller’s lawyer called the ruling disappointing and told Legal Times the ultimate fate of the ordinance might depend on the outcome of McDonald v. City of Chicago, a case examining the legality of Chicago’s handgun ban.
