Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf
Page Number: 5.0

2 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER 

Opinion of the Court 

Respondent  Dick  Heller  is  a  D. C.  special  police  officer 

authorized  to  carry  a  handgun  while  on  duty  at  the  Fed­
eral Judicial Center.  He applied for a registration certifi­
cate  for  a  handgun  that  he  wished  to  keep  at  home,  but 
the  District  refused.    He  thereafter  filed  a  lawsuit  in  the 
Federal  District  Court  for  the  District  of  Columbia  seek­
ing,  on  Second  Amendment  grounds,  to  enjoin  the  city
from  enforcing  the  bar  on  the  registration  of  handguns, 
the licensing requirement insofar as it prohibits the carry­
ing  of  a  firearm  in  the  home  without  a  license,  and  the 
trigger-lock  requirement  insofar  as  it  prohibits  the  use  of 
“functional  firearms  within  the  home.”  App.  59a.  The 
District  Court  dismissed  respondent’s  complaint,  see 
Parker  v.  District  of  Columbia,  311  F. Supp.  2d  103,  109 
(2004).  The  Court  of  Appeals  for  the  District  of Columbia 
Circuit,  construing  his  complaint  as  seeking  the  right  to
render  a  firearm  operable  and  carry  it  about  his  home  in 
that  condition  only  when  necessary  for  self-defense,2  re­
versed,  see  Parker  v.  District  of  Columbia,  478  F. 3d  370, 
401  (2007).  It  held  that  the  Second  Amendment  protects
an individual right to possess firearms and that the city’s
total  ban  on  handguns,  as  well  as  its  requirement  that 
firearms  in  the  home  be  kept  nonfunctional  even  when
necessary  for  self-defense,  violated  that  right.    See  id.,  at 
395, 399–401.  The Court of Appeals directed the District
Court to enter summary judgment for respondent. 
We granted certiorari.  552 U. S. ___ (2007). 

II 
We turn first to the meaning of the Second Amendment. 

A 

The  Second  Amendment  provides:  “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 
—————— 

2 That construction has not been challenged here.