Opinion ID: 614652
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Interpreting Heller and McDonald

Text: A substantial portion of the dissent is devoted to arguing Heller and McDonald preclude the application of heightened (intermediate, or for that matter, strict) scrutiny in all Second Amendment cases. The dissent reasons that Heller rejected balancing tests and that heightened scrutiny is a type of balancing test. As we read Heller, the Court rejected only Justice Breyer's proposed interest-balancing inquiry, which would have had the Court ask whether the challenged statute burdens a protected interest in a way or to an extent that is out of proportion to the statute's salutary effects upon other important governmental interests. 554 U.S. at 689-90, 128 S.Ct. 2783 (Breyer J., dissenting). That is, Justice Breyer, rather than ask merely whether the Government is promoting an important interest by way of a narrowly tailored means, as we do here, would have had courts in Second Amendment cases decide whether the challenged statute imposes burdens that, when viewed in light of the statute's legitimate objectives, are disproportionate. Id. at 693, 128 S.Ct. 2783. Thus, although Justice Breyer would have had us assess whether the District's handgun ban further[s] the sort of life-preserving and public-safety interests that the Court has called `compelling,' id. at 705, 128 S.Ct. 2783 (citation omitted), the key to his interest-balancing approach was proportionality; that is, he would have had us weigh this governmental interest against the extent to which the District's law burdens the interests that the Second Amendment seeks to protect, id. at 706, 128 S.Ct. 2783. Our dissenting colleague asserts (at 1282) heightened scrutiny is also a form of interest balancing and maintains that strict and intermediate scrutiny always involve at least some assessment of whether the law in question is sufficiently important to justify infringement on an individual constitutional right. Although, as he points out, the Supreme Court has in a few opinions applying heightened scrutiny out of scores if not hundreds of such opinionsused the word balance, heightened scrutiny is clearly not the interest-balancing inquiry proposed by Justice Breyer and rejected by the Court in Heller. The Court there said, Justice Breyer's proposal did not correspond to any of the traditionally expressed levels (strict scrutiny, intermediate scrutiny, rational basis), 554 U.S. at 634, 128 S.Ct. 2783, but was rather a judge-empowering `interest-balancing inquiry' that would have a court weigh the asserted governmental interests against the burden the Government would place upon exercise of the Second Amendment right, a balancing that is not part of either strict or intermediate scrutiny. The dissent further contends McDonald confirms the Supreme Court's rejection of heightened scrutiny in Second Amendment cases because a plurality of the Court there said Justice Breyer is incorrect that incorporation will require judges to assess the costs and benefits of firearms restrictions and thus to make difficult empirical judgments in an area in which they lack expertise. 130 S.Ct. at 3050. That observation was clearly and specifically directed to Justice Breyer's interest-balancing inquiry, as the very next sentence shows: As we have noted, while his opinion in Heller recommended an interest-balancing test, the Court specifically rejected that suggestion. Id. Moreover, strict and intermediate scrutiny do not, as the dissent asserts (at 1278), obviously require assessment of the `costs and benefits' of government regulations. Rather, they require an assessment of whether a particular law will serve an important or compelling governmental interest; that is not a comparative judgment. If the Supreme Court truly intended to rule out any form of heightened scrutiny for all Second Amendment cases, then it surely would have said at least something to that effect. Cf. Heller, 554 U.S. at 628 n. 27, 128 S.Ct. 2783 (expressly rejecting rational basis review). The Court did not say anything of the sort; the plaintiffs in this case do not suggest it did; and the idea that Heller precludes heightened scrutiny has eluded every circuit to have addressed that question since Heller was issued. See First Circuit: United States v. Booker, 644 F.3d 12, 25 (2011) (requiring a substantial relationship between the restriction and an important governmental objective); Third Circuit: Marzzarella, 614 F.3d at 97 (applying intermediate scrutiny); Fourth Circuit: United States v. Masciandaro, 638 F.3d 458, 471 (2011) (same); Chester, 628 F.3d at 683 (same); id. at 690 (Davis, J., concurring) (same); Seventh Circuit: Ezell, 651 F.3d at 709 (applying more rigorous showing than intermediate scrutiny, if not quite `strict scrutiny'); id. at 712-14 (Rovner J., concurring) (endorsing intermediate scrutiny); Williams, 616 F.3d at 692-93 (applying intermediate scrutiny); United States v. Skoien, 614 F.3d 638, 641-42 (2010) (en banc) (upholding law upon assumption intermediate scrutiny applies); Ninth Circuit: Nordyke, 644 F.3d at 786 n. 9 (reserving precisely what type of heightened scrutiny applies to laws that substantially burden Second Amendment rights); id. at 795 (Gould J., concurring in part, would subject to heightened scrutiny only arms regulations falling within the core purposes of the Second Amendment and would subject incidental burdens on the Second Amendment right ... to reasonableness review); Tenth Circuit: Reese, 627 F.3d at 802 (applying intermediate scrutiny). The dissent (at 1284-85) takes us to task for suggesting a restriction on a core enumerated constitutional right can be subjected to intermediate scrutiny. This assertion, true or false, is simply misplaced; we apply intermediate scrutiny precisely because the District's laws do not affect the core right protected by the Second Amendment. See supra at 1256-57, 1261-62. Unlike our dissenting colleague, we read Heller straightforwardly: The Supreme Court there left open and untouched even by implication the issue presented in this case. The Court held the ban on handguns unconstitutional without at the same time adopting any particular level of scrutiny for Second Amendment cases because it concluded that [u]nder any of the standards of scrutiny that we have applied to enumerated constitutional rights, banning from the home the most preferred firearm in the nation to keep and use for protection of one's home and family would fail constitutional muster. Id. at 628-29, 128 S.Ct. 2783 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); McDonald, 130 S.Ct. at 3036 (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 628-30, 128 S.Ct. 2783). Nothing in Heller suggests a case involving a restriction significantly less severe than the total prohibition of handguns at issue there could or should be resolved without reference to one or another of the familiar constitutional standards of scrutiny. On the contrary, the Supreme Court was explicit in cautioning that because Heller was its first in-depth examination of the Second Amendment, one should not expect it to clarify the entire field. Heller, 554 U.S. at 635, 128 S.Ct. 2783; see also, e.g., Ezell, 651 F.3d at 703 (with the exception of broadly prohibitory laws restricting the core Second Amendment right, courts are left to choose an appropriate standard of review from among the heightened standards of scrutiny the Court applies to governmental actions alleged to infringe enumerated constitutional rights); Chester, 628 F.3d at 682 ( Heller left open the level of scrutiny applicable to review a law that burdens conduct protected under the Second Amendment, other than to indicate that rational-basis review would not apply in this context); Volokh, supra, at 1456 (The Court [in Heller ] did not discuss what analysis would be proper for less `severe' restrictions, likely because it had no occasion to). Having rejected the possibility of heightened scrutiny, the dissent (at 1285) goes on to find in Heller this proposition: Gun bans and gun regulations that are not longstanding or sufficiently rooted in text, history, and tradition are not consistent with the Second Amendment individual right. We do not see this purportedly up-front test announced anywhere in the Court's opinion. The Court in Heller said certain longstanding regulations are presumptively lawful, 554 U.S. at 626-27 & n. 26, 128 S.Ct. 2783, but it nowhere suggested, nor does it follow logically, that a regulation must be longstanding or rooted in text, history, and tradition in order to be constitutional. As we have said, the Court struck down the handgun ban because it so severely restricted the core Second Amendment right of self-defense in the home that it would fail constitutional muster under any standard of scrutiny. Likewise, the Court invalidated the District's requirement that handguns in the home be rendered and kept inoperable because that requirement makes it impossible for citizens to use them for the core lawful purpose of self-defense. Id. at 630, 128 S.Ct. 2783. The Court in Heller did consider whether there were historical analogues to the handgun ban, but only to note, primarily in response to Justice Breyer's dissent, that because earlier laws were far less restrictive, they did not support the constitutionality of a ban on handguns. See id. at 632, 128 S.Ct. 2783 (Nothing about [the] fire-safety laws cited by Justice Breyer undermines our analysis; they do not remotely burden the right of self-defense as much as an absolute ban on handguns); id. (other founding-era laws cited by Justice Breyer provide no support for the severe restriction in the present case). In any event, we think it clear Heller did not announce the up-front test applicable to all Second Amendment cases that our dissenting colleague goes to great lengths to divine from that opinion. In sum, Heller explicitly leaves many questions unresolved and says nothing to cast doubt upon the propriety of the lower courts applying some level of heightened scrutiny in a Second Amendment challenge to a law significantly less restrictive than the outright ban on all handguns invalidated in that case. Although Heller renders longstanding regulations presumptively constitutional, it nowhere suggests a law must be longstanding or rooted in text, history, and tradition to be constitutional.