Opinion ID: 614652
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Do the registration requirements impinge upon the Second Amendment right?

Text: The plaintiffs argue the registration requirements are not longstanding and therefore not presumptively lawful, and in fact impermissibly burden the right protected by the Second Amendment. The District responds that registration requirements have been accepted throughout our history, are not overly burdensome, and therefore do not affect the right protected by the Second Amendment.
The record supports the view that basic registration of handguns is deeply enough rooted in our history to support the presumption that a registration requirement is constitutional. The Court in Heller considered prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons to be longstanding although states did not start to enact them until the early 20th century. See C. Kevin Marshall, Why Can't Martha Stewart Have a Gun?, 32 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 695, 708 (2009) (noting ban on convicts possessing firearms were unknown before World War I and compilation of laws in mid-1925 indicated that no State banned possession of long guns based on a prior conviction; that only six banned possession of concealable weapons on such basis; that, except for New York, ... even those laws dated from 1923 or later). At just about the same time, states and localities began to require registration of handguns. Registration typically required that a person provide to the local Government a modicum of information about the registrant and his firearm. A 1911 New York statute delegated the record keeping function to sellers of concealable firearms, requiring them to keep a register recording the date of sale, name, age, occupation and residence of every purchaser of such a [firearm], together with the calibre, make, model, manufacturer's number or other mark of identification on such [firearm], which register had to be open at all reasonable hours for the inspection of any peace officer. Act of May 25, 1911, ch. 195, § 2, 1911 N.Y. Laws 444-45. Similar laws had already been enacted by Illinois, Act of Apr. 16, 1881, ¶ 90, and Georgia, Act of Aug. 12, 1910, No. 432, § 2, 1910 Ga. Laws 134, 135 (official who grants license to carry pistol or revolver shall keep a record of the name of the person taking out such license, the name of the maker of the fire-arm to be carried, and the caliber and number of the same). Other states were soon to do so. See Oregon, Act of Feb. 21, 1917, ch. 377, 1917 Or. Laws 804, 805-06; Michigan, Act of June 2, 1927, No. 372, § 9, 1927 Mich. Laws 887, 891 (any person within this state who owns or has in his possession a pistol must present such weapon for safety inspection to the commissioner or chief of police. . . . A certificate of inspection shall thereupon be issued ... and kept as a permanent official record for a period of six years). In 1917 California likewise required the purchaser of a concealable firearm to give the seller basic information about himself, including his name, address, occupation, physical description (height and color of skin, eyes, and hair), and about the weapon (caliber, make, model, number). Act of May 4, 1917, ch. 145, § 7, 1917 Cal. Laws 221, 222-23. Hawaii did the same in 1927, while still a territory, Small Arms Act, Act 206, § 9, 1927 Haw. Laws 209, 211, as did the Congress for the District of Columbia in 1932, see Act of July 8, 1932, ch. 465, § 8, 47 Stat. 650, 652. In sum, the basic requirement to register a handgun is longstanding in American law, accepted for a century in diverse states and cities and now applicable to more than one fourth of the Nation by population. [] Therefore, we presume the District's basic registration requirement, D.C.Code § 7-2502.01(a), including the submission of certain information, § 7-2502.03(b), does not impinge upon the right protected by the Second Amendment. Further, we find no basis in either the historical record or the record of this case to rebut that presumption. Indeed, basic registration requirements are self-evidently de minimis, for they are similar to other common registration or licensing schemes, such as those for voting or for driving a car, that cannot reasonably be considered onerous. Cf. Rosario v. Rockefeller, 410 U.S. 752, 754-58, 93 S.Ct. 1245, 36 L.Ed.2d 1 (1973) (law requir[ing] a voter to enroll in the party of his choice at least 30 days before the general election in November in order to vote in the next subsequent party primary does not violate First and Fourteenth Amendments because if [the petitioners'] plight [could] be characterized as disenfranchisement at all, it was not caused by [the law], but by their own failure to take timely steps to effect their enrollment); id. at 760, 93 S.Ct. 1245 (the State is certainly justified in imposing some reasonable cutoff point for registration or party enrollment, which citizens must meet in order to participate in the next election); Justice v. Town of Cicero, 577 F.3d 768, 773-74 (7th Cir.2009) (ordinance requiring the registration of all firearms ... appears to be consistent with the ruling in Heller ). These early registration requirements, however, applied with only a few exceptions solely to handgunsthat is, pistols and revolvers and not to long guns. Consequently, we hold the basic registration requirements are constitutional only as applied to handguns. With respect to long guns they are novel, not historic.
Several other of the District's registration requirements are not longstanding, including the ballistics-identification provision, D.C.Code § 7-2502.03(d), the one-pistol-per-30-days rule, § 7-2502.03(e), and the requirements that applicants appear in person, § 7-2502.04(c), and re-register each firearm after three years, § 7-2502.07a(a)-(c). Certain portions of the law that are more akin to licensing the gun owner than to registering the gun are also novel; these include the requirement that an applicant demonstrate knowledge about firearms, § 7-2502.03(a)(10), be fingerprinted and photographed, § 7-2502.04(a)-(b), take a firearms training or safety course, § 7-2502.03(a)(13)(A), meet a vision requirement, § 7-2502.03(a)(11), and submit to a background check every six years, § 7-2502.07a(d). [] The requirements that are not longstanding, which include, in addition to those listed in the prior paragraph, all the requirements as applied to long guns, also affect the Second Amendment right because they are not de minimis. [] All of these requirements, such as the mandatory five hours of firearm training and instruction, § 7-2502.03(a)(13)(A), make it considerably more difficult for a person lawfully to acquire and keep a firearm, including a handgun, for the purpose of self-defense in the homethe core lawful purpose protected by the Second Amendment, Heller, 554 U.S. at 630, 128 S.Ct. 2783. Because they impinge upon that right, we must determine whether these requirements are constitutional. [] In order to do that, however, we must first determine the degree of scrutiny to which they are appropriately subject.