It’s hard to believe that after over two centuries, the Supreme Court has never definitively ruled on whether the 2nd Amendment protects an individual’s<\/i> right to “keep and bear arms.”<\/p>\n
This morning, that changed<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Supreme Court says Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense and hunting, the justices’ first major pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history.<\/p>\n The court’s 5-4 ruling strikes down the District of Columbia’s 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment. The decision goes further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most firearms laws intact. […]<\/p>\n The basic issue for the justices was whether the amendment protects an individual’s right to own guns no matter what, or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The 5-4 split was fairly predictable. Scalia wrote the majority ruling, and was joined by Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, and Thomas. Stevens wrote the dissent, and was joined by Breyer, Souter, and Ginsburg. The full ruling is online<\/a> (.pdf).<\/p>\n At issue, in addition to the broader 2nd Amendment question, was the District of Columbia strict gun-control law, which was also rejected by lower federal courts.<\/p>\n Scalia wrote the Constitution does not permit “the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home.” Stevens responded that the court’s majority “would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons.” Such evidence “is nowhere to be found.”<\/p>\n When the AP noted that the decision “goes further than even the Bush administration wanted,” it was probably referring to the fact that the court decided that even the trigger lock requirement is unconstitutional. Answering a 127-year old constitutional question, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to have a gun, at least in one’s home. The Court, splitting 5-4, struck down a District of Columbia ban on handgun possession.<\/p>\n Justice Antonin Scalia’s opinion for the majority stressed that the Court was not casting doubt on long-standing bans on carrying a concealed gun or on gun possession by felons or the mentally retarded, on laws barring guns from schools or government buildings, and laws putting conditions on gun sales.<\/p>\n In District of Columbia v. Heller (07-290), the Court nullified two provisions of the city of Washington’s strict 1976 gun control law: a flat ban on possessing a gun in one’s home, and a requirement that any gun \u2014 except one kept at a business \u2014 must be unloaded and disassembled or have a trigger lock in place. The Court said it was not passing on a part of the law requiring that guns be licensed. It said that issuing a license to a handgun owner, so the weapon can be used at home, would be a sufficient remedy for the Second Amendment violation of denying any access to a handgun.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Given the season, the next question, of course, is the political implications of the court’s decision.<\/p>\n John McCain, in an earlier version of himself, tacked towards the center on gun control, supporting an end to the gun-show loophole and announcing that he didn’t want the NRA to influence the Republican Party’s position on the issue. The current version of McCain, however, supported the case against the DC gun ban, and in a couple of minutes, will host a press conference<\/a> to herald today’s decision.<\/p>\n As for Obama, the Democratic nominee hasn’t been especially vocal on the DC case, and at the last Democratic debate, said he hadn’t heard the arguments. A Chicago Tribune article from last November said the Obama campaign believed “the D.C. handgun law is constitutional,” but it did not quote the candidate directly. This morning, before the Supreme Court ruling was issued, Obama spokesman Bill Burton said<\/a>, “That statement was obviously an inartful attempt to explain the Senator’s consistent position.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s hard to believe that after over two centuries, the Supreme Court has never definitively ruled on whether the 2nd Amendment protects an individual’s right to “keep and bear arms.” This morning, that changed. The Supreme Court says Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense and hunting, the justices’ first major pronouncement on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16004\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nThe estimable Lyle Denniston’s piece<\/a> helped, as always, provide some context.<\/p>\n