''Silveira v. Lockyer,'' 312 F.3d 1052 (9th Cir. 2002), is a decision by the

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (in case citations, 9th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court of appeals that has appellate jurisdiction over the U.S. district courts for the following federal judicial districts: * Distric ...

ruling that the

Second Amendment to the United States Constitution The Second Amendment (Amendment II) to the United States Constitution protects the Right to keep and bear arms in the United States, right to keep and bear arms. It was ratified on December 15, 1791, along with nine other articles of the Un ...

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 California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

legislation that banned the manufacture, sale, transportation, or importation of specified

semi-automatic firearm A semi-automatic firearm, also called a self-loading or autoloading firearm ( fully automatic and selective fire firearms are also variations on self-loading firearms), is a repeating firearm whose action mechanism automatically loads a follo ...

s. The plaintiffs alleged that various provisions of the AWCA infringed upon their individual constitutionally-guaranteed

right to keep and bear arms The right to keep and bear arms (often referred to as the right to bear arms) is a legal right for people to possess weapons (arms) for the preservation of life, liberty, and property. The purpose of gun rights is for Self-defense#Armed, self ...

. 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 opinion initially cited Michael Bellesiles, the historian who earlier in 2002 had resigned under pressure from

Emory University Emory University is a private university, private research university in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It was founded in 1836 as Emory College by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory. Its main campu ...

and been stripped of his

Bancroft Prize The Bancroft Prize is awarded each year by the trustees of Columbia University for books about diplomacy or the history of the Americas. It was established in 1948, with a bequest from Frederic Bancroft, in his memory and that of his brother, d ...

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

for using fabricated research arguing that during the early period of US history, guns were uncommon during peacetime and that a culture of gun ownership did not arise until the mid-nineteenth century; on January 27, 2003, Judge Reinhardt deleted the citation to Bellesiles and substituted research by political scientist Earl Kruschke in its place. The Ninth Circuit refused to hear the case

en banc In law, an ''en banc'' (; alternatively ''in banc'', ''in banco'' or ''in bank''; ) session is when all the judges of a court sit to hear a case, not just one judge or a smaller panel of judges. For courts like the United States Courts of Appeal ...

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 Alex Kozinski (; born July 23, 1950) is a Romanian-American jurist and lawyer who was a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 1985 to 2017. He was a prominent and influential judge, and many of his law clerks went on to ...

. The U.S. Supreme Court denied

review A review is an evaluation of a publication, product, service, or company or a critical take on current affairs in literature, politics or culture. In addition to a critical evaluation, the review's author may assign the work a content rating, ...

, despite the decision conflicting with the holding of the Fifth Circuit in '' United States v. Emerson''. In the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

case of '' District of Columbia v. Heller'', 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 ''McDonald v. City of Chicago'', 561 U.S. 742 (2010), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that found that the right of an individual to "keep and bear arms", as protected under the Second Amendment, is incorporate ...

'', in 2010, that the Second Amendment is an incorporated right, meaning that it is applicable to state governments and to the federal government.

References

{{US2ndAmendment United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit cases United States Second Amendment case law 2002 in United States case law

See also

References