The right to bear Tasers: US Supreme Court rules electric stun guns are protected by constitution

The US Supreme Court effectively extended the reach of the Second Amendment Monday, saying the constitutional right to “bear arms” is not limited to handguns and other firearms, and may include an electric stun gun.

In a brief unanimous opinion, the justices set aside a ruling that upheld the criminal conviction of Jaime Caetano, a Massachusetts woman who kept a stun gun to defend herself against an abusive ex-boyfriend.

It marked the first time in six years that the justices have said anything about the meaning of Second Amendment.

In 2008, the high court struck down a District of Columbia ordinance that banned the private possession of guns, including a handgun kept at home for self-defense. Two years later, a similar ordinance from Chicago was struck down, extending such protections to all states.

Since then, the justices have refused to hear appeals from gun rights advocates hoping to broaden individuals’ rights to bear arms. In December, they let stand a ban on a semi-automatic “assault rifles” in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park.

Monday’s terse decision calls into doubt laws in several states, including New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Hawaii as well as cities such as Baltimore and Philadelphia, which forbid keeping or carrying stun guns.

In upholding its law, the Massachusetts high court had described stun guns as “dangerous and unusual weapons” which are quite unlike the muskets and other “weapons of warfare … used by the militia” of the 18th century. “We hold that a stun gun is not the type of weapon that is eligible for Second Amendment protection,” the state justices said.