Which U.S. Supreme Court case established the right to bear arms for self-defense in the home?

District of Columbia v. Heller established that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm for traditionally lawful purposes, including self-defense in the home.

Decided in 2008, the case challenged Washington, D.C.'s near-total ban on handgun possession and its requirement that lawful firearms be kept unloaded, disassembled, or secured with a trigger lock. Dick Heller, a D.C. special police officer, wanted to keep a handgun at home for protection but could not legally do so.

Justice Antonin Scalia's 5–4 majority opinion rejected the argument that the Second Amendment protected only militia-related gun ownership. The Court held that the amendment protects an individual right, while emphasizing that the right is not unlimited. The decision did not invalidate every firearm regulation; it specifically held that the District's handgun ban and trigger-lock rule were unconstitutional as applied to self-defense.

A common mix-up is United States v. Miller, an earlier case involving protected weapon types, and McDonald v. Chicago, which later applied Heller's individual-right principle to state and local governments.