Rewriting the Rules

The Supreme Court held its highest-profile ruling until the very last day of the very last week of its session. The ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller effectively overturned D.C.'s current ban on keeping loaded handguns in the home, a policy instituted in 1976 to address the city's abnormally high crime rate. Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said the ban made it "impossible for citizens to use [guns] for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional."

The Heller ruling was the first major Second Amendment case decided by the high court in almost 70 years and hung on a 5-4 majority. The amendment states that citizens' rights to own guns are necessary to form a "well regulated militia," but the city's lawyers argued that the Constitution's framers probably didn't have D.C.'s high gun-violence rate in mind when they wrote the text. Attorneys for Dick Heller, the federal security officer at the center of the case, who was prohibited from keeping a loaded gun in his house, argued that the text is very clear, and that Heller's rights had been unconstitutionally infringed.

The existing ban requires those authorized to carry a weapon—like security guards—to have a license, and it prohibits loaded guns from being kept in one's home. The Heller decision didn't nullify the entire policy. Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier told reporters that the ruling only addressed handguns kept in the home and that the city would likely open a gun registry within the next few weeks, as well as give away free gun-safety locks to anyone who registers a weapon. The ruling will also require officials elsewhere to restructure policies. Chicago, for one, has a similar ban on handguns that will be affected.

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty is now tasked with lifting the city's ban and coordinating new policies with law enforcement to deal with the legality of handguns in D.C., a city with one of America's highest crime rates. (Although the ruling only applies to handguns in the home, carrying a concealed weapon is still illegal without authorization.) In an exclusive interview, Fenty spoke to NEWSWEEK's Daniel Stone about the ruling and the city's plans to comply. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: Where were you when you heard? What was your reaction?
Adrian Fenty: I was at City Hall when I heard the ruling. We knew it was going to be a close vote. We were hoping it would be 5-4 our way. We lost by one vote, but it's hard to argue with the process and we certainly respect the judges' authority to make the decision that they did. We don't necessarily agree with it, but now we'll draft regulations that conform to it.

What kinds of regulations?
There are a couple of different ways this can go. We'll take the full three weeks [the time allotted by the court to comply with their ruling].