The Redhunter

(a) The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense at home.

(b) The Second Amendment right is not unlimited. The Court's opinion should not cast doubt on concealed-weapons prohibitions, laws barring possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, laws barring firearms in sensitive places like schools and government buildings, and laws imposing conditions on commercial sale of arms.

(c) D.C.'s handgun ban and trigger-lock requirement violate the Second Amendment. The total ban on handgun possession prohibits an entire class of arms that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense. Under any standard of scrutiny, that ban falls. The trigger-lock requirement makes self-defense impossible. D.C. may use a licensing scheme.

The decision can be downloaded from the SCOTUSblog here.

Ed Whelen has much more information and commentary on the decision here, and Tom Goldstein (SCOTUSblog.com) has a must-read post here. More from the SCOTUSblog here, here, and here.

I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play on on TV. Here then are some observations from an NRA member who believes strongly in the individual right to own firearms:

The Good News

Justice Scalia, writing for the majority, says outright that "The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense at home." This in and of itself is a huge victory.

Scalia also knocks down the notion that the Second Amendment was meant to protect the "right" of the states to have their own militias, ie National Guard.

Also, as mentioned above, the court declared that "D.C.'s ban on handgun possession violates the Second Amendment." and that "The "inherent right of self-defense has been central to the Second Amendment right." This last one is big, because the anti-gunners want us to rely on the government for protection.

And lastly, the total ban on handguns was struck down: "The handgun ban amounts to a prohibition of an entire class of 'arms' that is overwhelmingly chosen by American society for that lawful purpose....banning from the home 'the most preferred firearm in the nation to 'keep' and use for protection of one's home and family,' would fail constitutional muster."" Take that, you liberal anti-gunners!

The Bad News

While a victory is a victory, I wish it had been by a lot more than 5-4. That 4 justices see the Second Amendment as a "collective" right is disturbing.

The decision left the door open to gun bans beyond automatic weapons ("machine guns" for you non-gun types). "We do not cast doubt on concealed-weapons prohibitions...the sorts of weapons protected are the sorts of small arms that were lawfully possessed at home at the time of the Second Amendment's ratification, not those most useful in military service today, so "M-16 rifles and the like" may be banned"

So there's still going to be much fighting in legislatures. The anti-gunners can still ban "scary" guns.

Finally, the "licensing scheme" business is troubling. The court said that "Respondent conceded at oral argument that he does not 'have a problem with . . . licensing' and that the District's law is permissible so long as it is 'not enforced in an arbitrary and capricious manner.'" which seems to mean that jurisdictions may require a license to own a firearm, but can't be used in a manner to as to create a de facto firearms ban. This, too, opens the door to many court cases.

The Dangers

A change of one justice and a 5-4 decision is reversed. For all the liberals talk about stare decisis with regard to Roe v. Wade, you can bet you'll never hear the term if they think they can reverse this decision.

The bottom line is that a president Obama will appoint liberals to the court who will want to overturn today's decision, and McCain will appoint conservatives who will uphold it. The choice couldn't be clearer.

Update

I've noticed around the Internet that some on the left are decrying this as an "activist" decision, and thus conservatives are hypocrites. I'm not sure if the people making this argument really believe what they are saying of whether they're being disingenuous, but I'll take it on.

No serious person on the right believes that the Supreme Court should not strike down unconstitutional laws, as long as the reasoning is solidly based on what the Constitution actually says, and what the founders (or those who wrote the various amendments) intended. What we object to is "making it up as you go along", ie rulings that are social engineering disguised as constitutional law. Whenever someone starts talking about a "living Constitution" or "penumbras", you know they're making it up to suit their political agendas.

So when Senator Obama said during the Roberts confirmation hearings that

Both a [conservative Justice Antonin] Scalia and a Ginsburg will arrive at the same place most of the time. What matters at the Supreme Court is those 5% of cases that are truly difficult. In those cases, adherence to precedent and rules of construction will only get you through 25 miles of the marathon. That last mile can only be determined on the basis of one's deepest values, one's core concerns, one's broader perspectives on how the world works and the depth and breadth of one's empathy.

In those difficult cases, the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge's heart.

and during a town hall meeting

What I really believe is that the Supreme Court has to be first and foremost thinking about and looking out for those who are vulnerable. People who are minorities, people who have historically been discriminated against. People who are poor. People who have been cheated. People who are being taken advantage of. People who have unpopular opinions. People who are outsiders.

and to CNN's Wolf Blitzer

...what I do want is a judge who's sympathetic enough to those who are on the outside, those who are vulnerable, those who are powerless, those who can't have access to political power, and, as a consequence, can't protect themselves from being -- from being dealt with sometimes unfairly, that the courts become a refuge for judges.

That's been its historic role. That was its role in Brown vs. Board of Education.

...you know you're dealing with someone who sees the Supreme Court as a second legislature, who's purpose is to enact whatever laws the Democrats can't get through the regular legislature. And bty, he's wrong about Brown v Board of Education. Nothing other than the plain reading of Section One the Fourteenth Amendment was needed to decide that case.

Contrast this with Senator John McCain, who says he is a "Strict Constructionist" on his campaign website

John McCain believes that one of the greatest threats to our liberty and the Constitutional framework that safeguards our freedoms are willful judges who usurp the role of the people and their representatives and legislate from the bench. As President, John McCain will nominate judges who understand that their role is to faithfully apply the law as written, not impose their opinions through judicial fiat.

As I said, the choice couldn't be clearer. You have Senator Obama, who wants to use the courts as a second legislature, and Senator McCain, who wants the courts to make rulings based on the law.

Update II Sunday June 29

This letter to the editor today in The Washington Times exposes the liberal mindset perfectly:

The Supreme Court's decision in District of Columbia v. Heller ("The gun ban ends," Editorial, Friday). leaves me with a disturbing realization that our society is strangely wedded to words written in a profoundly different era. While your editorial praises the importance of this ruling on the District's gun ban and the protection of the rights of its citizens, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia's majority opinion was not about what is right, nor about what is smart, nor about the best interests of the District. Justice Scalia's grammar lesson on the relationship between prefatory clauses and objective clauses is hardly worthy of the sheer importance of such landmark decisions for our society. The District of Columbia and the United States do not need a long and winding recitation of the tyrannies of King George III that led to the formation of militias.

Were Justice Scalia and the others in the majority to have argued why the Second Amendment, as interpreted, is relevant today, this decision might not seem so anachronistic. On the contrary, Associate Justice John Paul Stevens' dissenting opinion smartly ignores such irrelevant history lessons and argues with the realities of the present era in mind. We need a justice system that lives in the 21st century, not one beholden to the myth that words written in 1791 about men carrying muskets have any bearing today.

ANDREW CORSO
Arlington

If you don't like a law, just have some judge declare it irrelevant and put something different in its place. Those legislatures and referrendums can be so pesky!