The American government has faced many cases by the Supreme Court in recent years. One of the most outspoken cases dealing with civil liberties was the District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008. This case represents the events connected with the civil rights of American citizens living in the District of Columbia to own handguns.
Heller disagreed with the laws of the District of Columbia, which prohibited the ownership of handguns by ordinary civilians. Such a ban violated his Second Amendment, which eventually, after several manipulations, led to Heller’s favor (Duignan, 2022). The analysis of John Paul Stevens describes the decision of the Court as a failure because it could not provide any evidence that the Second Amendment was aimed to break the ruling process of Congress on the matter of handgun usage by civilians (Duignan, 2022). As a result, it was stated that individuals living in the District of Columbia have the right to own, keep, and use their handguns legally. The problem of this case can also be explained from the linguistic side. Elizabeth Zak proved that the case meaning was ambiguous as long as the direct and correct interpretation was not given. As a result, there were several violations of the Second Amendment (Zak, n.d.). All after all, the citizens’ interpretation of the right cannot change the law itself, even though there are limitations made by other developments (Massaro, 2022). The states proposed the Amendment, which presented exclusive individual rights.
Conclusively, the case of the District of Columbia v. Heller proved that there are many imperfections when the laws connected with civil liberties are adopted in the United States. Usually, the plain explanation or meaning leads to a more effective law creation process and overall public opinion satisfaction. The Supreme Court of the United States plays a crucial role in the stability of society, significantly if the problem of people’s self-defense is raised.
References
Duignan, B. (2022). District of Columbia v. Heller. Britannica. Web.
Massaro, J. (2022). Ten reasons why District of Columbia v. Heller was decided incorrectly. Soapbox Weekly. Web.
Zak, E. (n.d.). Semantic relativism and information science: An exploration of District of Columbia v. Heller (2008). University of Iowa. Web.