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Originally Posted by Glenn E. Meyer
Here we go: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-dc-circuit/1388980.html
United States Court of Appeals,District of Columbia Circuit.
Shelly PARKER, et al., Appellants v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA and Adrian M. Fenty, Mayor of the District of Columbia, Appellees.
No. 04-7041.
Decided: March 09, 2007
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That is not to suggest that the government is absolutely barred from regulating the use and ownership of pistols. The protections of the Second Amendment are subject to the same sort of reasonable restrictions that have been recognized as limiting, for instance, the First Amendment.
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So the term has some history behind it, even it didn't appear in Heller. It is then used in conjuction with the Heller discussion of some restrictions that are allowable. Such as this interpretation of Heller:
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Indeed, as Justice Antonin Scalia noted in the majority opinion, the right to keep and bear arms is “not unlimited,” and is “not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”3Rather, the Court identified a non-exhaustive list of “presumptively lawful” gun restrictions, such as gun sales regulations, bans on public carrying of firearms, bans on dangerous and unusual weapons, and bans on gun possession by certain classes of prohibited persons.
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And this is where I have to differ with Mr. Scalia, as well as with the District of Columbia court of appeals. The comparison with "reasonable restrictions" of First Amendment rights fails because the Second Amendment itself says that it is not subject to restrictions. It says "shall not be infringed." It does NOT say "shall not be
unreasonably infringed."
"Restriction," "regulation," whatever you choose to call it -- equals infringement. None of the other rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights comes straight out and says "shall not be infringed." Anyone with a modicum of intellectual honesty would have to admit that "shall not be infringed" means "is not subject to restriction."