When people talk about limitations on the right to freedom of speech, they often point to the fact that you can’t yell “Fire!” in a crowded theatre. Unless there is a fire, of course.
While the right to a free press is broad, the media can be prohibited from publishing or broadcasting something that would lead to violent or illegal action.
There are countless Supreme Court rulings spanning more than two centuries that speak to these rights, and they have helped to refine and define the protections enshrined in the First Amendment.
But what about the Second Amendment?
In the 2008 landmark ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller, which struck down a handgun ban in our nation’s capital, the Supreme Court held that the fundamental right to self-defense was at the core of the Second Amendment. Two years later, in McDonald v. Chicago, the Court applied the Heller ruling to the states.
After a decade under Heller, however, our nation’s highest court has yet to take up another major case challenging the constitutionality of a law regulating firearms. This is especially problematic because activist judges in lower courts regularly ignore the findings in Heller, as well as the standards by which the majority decided that banning handguns violates the core principle of the Second Amendment — the right to self-defense.
This unacceptable stagnation of the precedent set in Heller needs to end. A case challenging the constitutionality of “may-issue” carry permits should be high on the court’s agenda.
Laws establishing a “may-issue” standard for the acquisition of permits to carry firearms are anathema to the concept of the fundamental right to self-defense. Such schemes fail to set clear standards for
