Silveira v. Lockyer

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Silveira v. Lockyer
Seal of the United States Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit.svg
Court United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
ArguedFebruary 15, 2002
DecidedDecember 5, 2002
Citation(s)312 F.3d 1052 (9th Cir. 2002)
Case history
Subsequent action(s)Amended January 27, 2003
Rehearing en banc denied, 328 F.3d 567 (9th Cir. 2003)
Court membership
Judge(s) sitting Stephen Reinhardt, Frank J. Magill (8th Cir.), Raymond C. Fisher
Case opinions
MajorityReinhardt, joined by Fisher
ConcurrenceMagill
Laws applied
Second Amendment
Overruled by
District of Columbia v. Heller , 554 US 570 (2008)

Silveira v. Lockyer, 312 F.3d 1052 (9th Cir. 2002), [1] is a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruling that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution did not guarantee individuals the right to bear arms. The case involved a challenge to the constitutionality of the Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989 (AWCA), California legislation that banned the manufacture, sale, transportation, or importation of specified semi-automatic firearms. The plaintiffs alleged that various provisions of the AWCA infringed upon their individual constitutionally-guaranteed right to keep and bear arms.

Judge Stephen R. Reinhardt wrote the opinion of the three-member panel. The court engaged in an extensive analysis of the history of the Second Amendment and its attendant case law. The court concluded that the Second Amendment did not guarantee individuals the right to keep and bear arms. Instead, the court concluded that the Second Amendment provides "collective" rights, which is limited to the arming of state militia. The Ninth Circuit refused to hear the case en banc but issued a set of dissenting opinions to the denial to take the case en banc, which included a notable opinion by Judge Alex Kozinski. [2] The U.S. Supreme Court denied review. [3]

The decision conflicted with the holding of the Fifth Circuit in United States v. Emerson . [4]

In the U.S. Supreme Court case of District of Columbia v. Heller , [5] the opinion in Silveira v. Lockyer was overruled. The Supreme Court held in Heller that the right to keep and bear arms is a right of individuals. The Supreme Court also later held in McDonald v. Chicago , [6] in 2010, that the Second Amendment is an incorporated right, [7] meaning that it is applicable to state governments and to the federal government.

See also

Related Research Articles

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The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects the individual right to keep and bear arms. It was ratified on December 15, 1791, along with nine other articles of the Bill of Rights. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Supreme Court affirmed for the first time that the right belongs to individuals, for self-defense in the home, while also including, as dicta, that the right is not unlimited and does not preclude the existence of certain long-standing prohibitions such as those forbidding "the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill" or restrictions on "the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons". State and local governments are limited to the same extent as the federal government from infringing upon this right.

United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court that involved a Second Amendment challenge to the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA).

<i>United States v. Emerson</i>

United States v. Emerson, 270 F.3d 203, cert. denied, 536 U.S. 907 (2002), is a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit holding that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees individuals the right to bear arms. The case involved a challenge to the Constitutionality of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8)(C)(ii), a federal statute that prohibited the transportation of firearms or ammunition in interstate commerce by persons subject to a court order whose explicit terms prohibits the use of physical force against an intimate partner or child.

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Stephen Reinhardt American judge

Stephen Roy Reinhardt was a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, with chambers in Los Angeles, California. He was the last federal appeals court judge in active service to have been appointed by President Jimmy Carter.

Diarmuid OScannlain American judge

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District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court ruling that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms, unconnected with service in a militia, for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home, and that the District of Columbia's handgun ban and requirement that lawfully owned rifles and shotguns be kept "unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock" violated this guarantee. It also stated that the right to bear arms is not unlimited and that guns and gun ownership would continue to be regulated. It was the first Supreme Court case to decide whether the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense or if the right was intended for state militias.

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References

  1. Silveira v. Lockyer, 312F.3d1052 (9th Cir.2002).
  2. Silveira v. Lockyer, 328F.3d567 (9th Cir.2003).
  3. 124 S. Ct. 803 (2003)
  4. United States v. Emerson , 270F.3d203 (5th Cir.2001).
  5. District of Columbia v. Heller , 554 U.S. 570 (2008).
  6. McDonald v. Chicago , 561 U.S. 742 (2010).
  7. "The Second Amendment, Incorporated". The American Spectator. Retrieved 7 July 2013.