United States v. Miller
Case Overview
CITATION
491 U.S. 397 (1989)
ARGUED ON
November 23-24, 1885
DECIDED ON
January 4, 1886
DECIDED BY
Legal Issue
Does the 1934 National Firearms Act violate the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to keep and bear arms?
Holding
No, the 1934 National Firearms Act does not violate the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to keep and bear arms.
Jack Miller and the sawed-off double-barrel shotgun he and co-defendant Frank Lawton were indicted for transporting.
Background
In 1934, Congress enacted the National Firearms Act (NFA) in reaction to the events of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929. The NFA required that certain types of firearms, such as short-barreled shotguns and fully automatic rifles, be registered with the Miscellaneous Tax Unit, which is now the ATF.
In 1935, Jack Miller and Frank Layton were indicted for violating the NFA for transporting an unregistered double-barrel 12-gauge shotgun with a barrel less than 18 inches long from Oklahoma to Arkansas. In federal court, the defendants filed an objection to the indictment. They claimed that the NFA was unconstitutional because it was an attempt to usurp police power reserved to the states and it violated the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to keep and bear arms. The district court ruled the section of the NFA that prohibited transporting an unregistered firearm across state lines violated to the Second Amendment, but it’s suspected they only did so to get the case before the Supreme Court. The government took a direct appeal to the Supreme Court, but the defendants and their lawyers were all absent from the oral arguments due to financial issues and procedural irregularities.
Summary
Unanimous decision for the United States
United States
Roberts
Hughes
Frankfurter
Black
*Douglas
Butler
* Justice Douglas took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Miller
Stone
Reed
McReynolds
Opinion of the Court
Writing for a unanimous Court, Justice James McReynolds concluded that the National Firearms Act did not violate the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to keep and bear arms. McReynolds explained that “[i]n the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a ‘shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length’ at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument.” Additionally, McReynolds discredited the notion that the NFA aimed to seize police power reserved for the states, describing it as “plainly untenable” and citing the federal government’s authority to regulate interstate commerce. McReynolds concluded that the Second Amendment was intended to function as a part of a militia, writing, “[w]ith obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of such forces, the declaration and guarantee of the Second Amendment were made. It must be interpreted and applied with that end in view.”