Hovering above the current political debate over gun control legislation is the question of constitutional limits.1 The Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller2 holds that the Second Amendment restricts regulation of the private possession of firearms. The decision is based largely on legal historyparticularly the English origins of the amendment and the historic significance of its words and syntax. The court acknowledges that "the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited" but has declined to define the full scope of permissible regulation.3 As a result, the Heller decision has opened the door for challenges to gun control laws throughout the country, leaving the lower courts with legal history as the main tool for resolving such challenges.
In the past few weeks, federal courts have issued three significant decisionson the West Coast, in Chicago, and here in New Yorkthat warrant the attention of anyone who cares about gun control, pro or con. Two of those decisions discuss legal history at length. This article will suggest that the New York court reached the wiser conclusion of the two, because it properly recognized that legal history is too complex and uncertain a vehicle for setting policy on gun control today.
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