DC vs. Heller

Today was a landmark day for civil rights as the supreme court upheld a lower court's invalidation of the Washington DC gun ban in the DC vs. Heller case. Not only that, but the majority opinion issued by the court specifically and indisputably affirmed that the second amendment protects an individual right to own and use firearms, not just a collective right. It's about time that the court put this issue to rest, as they've been dodging having to address it for a long time now. They also stated that the right is not just limited to the purposes of hunting or sport, but is also meant for self-defense.

This is pretty huge and not only has the immediate effect of getting rid of DC's ridiculous gun ban, but also provides ample ground on which to challenge many other moronic gun laws around the country, such as those in New York, California, and Chicago. It also eliminates some of the more annoying arguments that the anti-gun crowd have attempted to use, particularly the claim that the second amendment somehow does not refer to the people as individuals like the rest of the bill of rights, but was really intended to forbid the government from disarming itself. That was a moronic argument to begin with, and now it's been completely torched to a smoldering heap by the supreme court itself.

The downside is that the court left a lot of issues vague and in need of future litigation and judgements for clarification. However, this is somewhat understandable since they are only permitted to rule on the issues that are directly relevant to the case at hand, which was whether the lower court was right to throw out DC's ban. Also, this decision is a firm foundation on which those future legal challenges can succeed.

It is also frightening that the decision was only 5-4. So there are apparently 4 supreme court justices who lack basic reading comprehension skills, or who chose to completely disregard the meaning and intent of the constitution in favor of trying to push their own ideas and agendas. We were only one vote away from having the supreme court claim that the bill of rights does not guarantee the right of an individual to own and use firearms, which is a sobering thought. But as lots of people keep saying, a win is a win, and this is just the beginning of the road to getting more of this bad legislation thrown out and preventing more from being created in the future.

The SCOTUS Blog has some good write-ups and information about the case if you want to read more about it. The High Road's legal forum also has a lot of good information and interesting analysis.

So as I said, this is a landmark decision, the Roe vs. Wade of gun rights, and I hope that 20 years from now we can look back on this as the day the tide finally turned against the erosion of civil rights, and gun rights in particular. Thank you to the supreme court for getting it right (although just barely), and thanks to all those who were involved in challenging this law in the first place and making all this possible.