Wolford v. Lopez · ¶2

In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, this Court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms, with the Amendment’s “central” concern being the fundamental right of self-defense. Id., at 577. Heller instructed courts to ascertain the scope of the right by looking to history and emphatically rejected an ahistorical “judge-empowering ‘interest-balancing inquiry.’ ” Id., at 634. The Court later held in McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, that the Second Amendment right applies equally to the Federal Government and the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, settling the question whether the Second Amendment embodies a uniform national standard or one that varies from one locale to another.

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