Citation

Vernick JS. J. Law Med. Ethics 2013; 41(Suppl 1): 84-87.

Affiliation

Associate Professor Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Co-Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/jlme.12047

PMID

23590749

Abstract

In District of Columbia v. Heller, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to own handguns in the home for protection, invalidating a Washington, D.C. law banning most handgun possession. The Heller decision, however, provided lower courts with little guidance regarding how to judge the constitutionality of gun laws other than handgun bans. Nevertheless, lower courts have upheld the vast majority of federal, state, and local gun laws challenged since Heller. One area in which some lower courts have disagreed has been the constitutionality of laws regulating the ability to carry firearms in public. This issue may be the next to be addressed by the Supreme Court under its evolving Second Amendment jurisprudence. Courts should carefully consider the negative public health and safety implications of gun carrying in public as they weigh the constitutionality of these laws.

Language: en