Exclusive–Dick Heller on 10th Anniversary of DC v Heller: Victory Lies at the Voting Booth

Dick Heller, who sued to overturn Washington handgun ban, poses for the assembled media af
AP/Gerald Herbert

During an interview on the June 26, 2018, episode of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, Dick Heller recounted the victory secured 10 years ago in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and made clear even greater victories await if gun owners will simply flood the polls on election day.

On June 26, 2008, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) handed down their ruling in Heller, reaffirming that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right and subsequently striking down DC’s gun ban. The 5-4 decision marked a high water point for supporters of the Second Amendment, but the left quickly sought loopholes and bypasses so they could continue to push gun control in the manner to which they had grown accustom.

In the 10 years since the decision, jurisprudence has sometimes followed Heller and has, at other times, ignored it. While being interviewed on Bullets, Heller said the key to realizing the full impact of the ruling is for gun owners to show up to vote in droves.

He said:

The Heller decision basically broke the mold of silence [on pro-gun suits]. Two years after Scalia’s magnificent decision I was shocked to find there were 75 additional gun cases in the federal courts, shocked. And a couple of years later I find there was 300, and now, from what I’m finding, it sounds like there’s in the range of 1,000 patriotic citizens who’ve stood up and roared and said “enough,” but those are people whose heart muscles have been strained by having to fight the monster by just trying to regain their rights.

We then discussed the possibility of hitting “critical mass” on this suits about the same time we get another Trump-appointed justice on SCOTUS.

Heller responded:

In summary, what I’d like to say is we’re really winning, because in 1986, before I was cop, I saw a two little paragraph story in the Washington Post that said “Florida is implementing concealed carry.” And I said, “Oh, this is very interesting.” And I watched it develop so that now…we have every single state, territory, and colony has some sort of concealed carry application, whether or not it’s full blown enough to suit the citizens. But at least we’ve gone from zero to 50-plus.

He added, “Everybody can do something–if every gun owner would just vote, we could tear [gun] restrictions apart.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange

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