The Supreme Court Rules That the Second Amendment Means What It Says
The Supreme Court on June 26 ruled that the Second Amendment to the Constitution confers, as it says, a right to keep and bear arms and that the District of Columbia law effectively prohibiting the possession of handguns by most citizens is unconstitutional. I've written on this issue in a column that appeared shortly after the Virginia Tech massacre, in this blog twice. In the column I noted Judge Laurence Silberman's strong opinion in the D.C. Circuit, which the Supreme Court has just affirmed, and went on:
Limited regulation is allowed, Silberman wrote, but not a total ban. Somewhere on the road between a law banning possession of nuclear weapons and banning all guns, the Second Amendment stands in the way. This is the view as well of the liberal constitutional law scholar Laurence Tribe.
And now it is the view of the Supreme Court itself.
Tags: Supreme Court | guns | Supreme Court rulings | Washington, DC
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Reader Comments
obama
you have no right to say that he is important and he is doing his job he is running for president
D.C. Gun Case.
All one has to do is read the Declaration of Independence to understand where the founders were coming from when they wrote the Second Amendment (Yes, it's true that the DOI is not law, so don't even go there. It's the best declaration of the philosophical principles upon which the much of the constitution is based.)
"whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,"
The founders believed that any government, including an elected one, was subject to corruption and that at some point may become so destructive of the rights of its citizens such that force would have to be used to abolish it.
Just my opinion.
No reason to fear a total gun ban
Since the Supreme Court in the Heller decision struck down the D.C. handgun ban by affirming the 2nd Amendment represents an individual (but by no means absolute) right, that leaves existing federal gun laws intact and allows some state/local gun regulations, but prohibits a total gun ban.
Ironically, some American gun owners may still fear a total ban on private ownership even though it's clearly impossible.
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