July 28, 2014 9:11AM # Podcast: The Second Amendment Wins in D.C. By [Caleb O. Brown](https://www.cato.org/people/caleb-o-brown) --- SHARE Saturday afternoon, a federal judge in the District of Columbia ruled that D.C.‘s “complete ban on the carrying of handguns in public is unconstitutional.” [Alan Gura](http://gurapossessky.com/wordpress/attorneys/alan-gura/) is the attorney on the case, entitled [*Palmer v. D.C.*](http://alangura.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/DCT_OPINION.pdf) [We talked yesterday about the ruling and how D.C. might comply](https://www.cato.org/multimedia/daily-podcast/second-amendment-applies-dc). Gura, along with [Clark Neily](http://www.ij.org/staff/cneily) of the Institute for Justice and Cato Institute chairman [Robert A. Levy](https://www.cato.org/people/robert-levy), served as co-counsel to Dick Heller in the landmark case of *[District of Columbia v. Heller](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller)*. The lead plaintiff in this case is Cato Institute senior fellow [Tom G. Palmer](https://www.cato.org/people/tom-palmer). [On his blog](http://alangura.com/2014/07/victory-in-palmer-v-d-c/), here’s how Gura characterized the win: > With this decision in *Palmer*, the nation’s last explicit ban of the right to bear arms has bitten the dust. Obviously, the carrying of handguns for self-defense can be regulated. Exactly how is a topic of severe and serious debate, and courts should enforce constitutional limitations on such regulation should the government opt to regulate. But totally banning a right literally spelled out in the Bill of Rights isn’t going to fly. ##### Related Tags [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).