District of Columbia v. Heller
2008 United States Supreme Court case
District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. It ruled that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution 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 certain restrictions on guns and gun ownership were permissible. 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 whether the right was only intended for state militias.
Because of the District of Columbia's status as a federal enclave (it is not in any U.S. state), the decision did not address the question of whether the Second Amendment's protections are incorporated by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution against the states. This point was addressed two years later by McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010), in which it was found that they are.
On June 26, 2008, the Supreme Court affirmed by a vote of 5 to 4 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Heller v. District of Columbia.
“District of Columbia v. Heller” enters the record as 2008 United States Supreme Court case. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what District, Columbia and Heller can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“District of Columbia v. Heller” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, District, Columbia and Heller provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1229683. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2008 and 2010.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “District of Columbia v. Heller”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow District of Columbia v. Heller primary sources, District of Columbia v. Heller archive and District research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “District of Columbia v. Heller”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “District of Columbia v. Heller” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.