"Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited," Scalia wrote as he laid out certain exceptions. Reflecting the fervor that the Second Amendment stirs, Scalia's majority opinion striking down a Washington, DC, ban on handguns in the home ran 64 pages and dissenting opinions totaled 90 pages. Before the Heller decision, federal judges generally regarded the Second Amendment as covering state militia, such as National Guards, rather than shielding individual rights. "(T)he majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues," he wrote. Leading the four liberal dissenters, Justice John Paul Stevens similarly took an "originalist" approach to the Second Amendment but came to the opposite conclusion.

Source: CNN April 16, 2021 20:08 UTC