Supreme Court RULZ!

[TLE2]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 09426.html

Justices Expand Gun Rights
Ruling Says Right to Bear Arms Supersedes Local Laws, Setting Off New Fights

By JESS BRAVIN

WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court ruled Monday that armed self-defense is a constitutional right, a historic conclusion to a long battle over the meaning of the Second Amendment.

The decision gives federal judges the power to strike down state and local weapons laws for violating the Constitution. But the court affirmed that the right isn't unfettered, and the decision is likely to lead to years of litigation as lower courts try to determine what restrictions are reasonable. Assault-weapons bans, licensing rules and other curbs will all be subject to challenge.

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Associated Press

The Supreme Court ruled for the first time that gun possession is fundamental to American freedom.
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Journal Community

The gun ruling came on a busy final day of the Supreme Court's 2009-2010 term. The court also found a small part of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley law unconstitutional but left the law almost entirely intact, and it limited the scope of "method patents" commonly used by businesses.

The 5-4 gun ruling extends nationwide the Supreme Court's 2008 decision that struck down a handgun ban within the District of Columbia. That decision found, for the first time, that the "right of the people to keep and bear arms" guaranteed by the Second Amendment applies to individuals outside the "well regulated militia" familiar to 18th-century Americans.

The justices said the two cities involved in the case—Chicago and Oak Park, Ill.—went too far with ordinances that effectively banned possession of handguns in the home for self-defense.

"It is clear that the framers and ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty," wrote Justice Samuel Alito in his majority opinion.

In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens said the majority should have left gun-control decisions to states and cities. "The elected branches have shown themselves to be perfectly capable of safeguarding the interest in keeping and bearing arms," wrote Justice Stevens. "Today's decision invites an avalanche of litigation that could mire the federal courts in fine-grained determinations about which state and local regulations" survive.
video
PM Report: Supreme Court Expands Gun Rights
9:20

The Supreme Court ruled for the first time that gun possession is fundamental to American freedom, giving federal judges the power to strike down state and local weapons laws for violating the Second Amendment. David Weidner, Ashby Jones and Peter Landers discuss. Also, Geoffrey Fowler discusses a new way libraries plan to lend books in the Internet age.
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Gun-rights advocates welcomed the chance to challenge gun-control laws. The decision "is going to unleash that process," said Paul Clement, a former solicitor general in the George W. Bush administration who argued the case for the National Rifle Association. "It's going to be tested and the doctrine is going to be developed in cases across the country."

That process could begin as soon as Tuesday, said Alan Gura, the Virginia attorney who won the 2008 decision, District of Columbia v. Heller, and also argued for would-be Chicago gun owners in this year's case. "Tomorrow you'll see a new case," said Mr. Gura, who already has several lawsuits pending against gun laws in California.

Laws in New York, North Carolina and other areas are likely to be challenged, gun-rights groups said, and challenges are already under way to laws on registration and assault weapons passed in the District of Columbia after the 2008 ruling.

With the right to protect one's home with firearms now recognized, Mr. Gura said a further step would be extending the right to carrying guns outside the home, "to carry them in public for self defense," he said.

Gun-control advocates looked for a silver lining in the court's observation that "reasonable" regulations remained constitutional.
Up in Arms

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AFP/Getty Images

See a breakdown of gun-related legislation state-by-state.

"There is nothing in today's decision that should prevent any state or local government from successfully defending, maintaining, or passing sensible, strong gun laws," said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Despite the breadth of its impact, the gun case, McDonald v. Chicago, arrived as an anticlimax. The 2008 Heller decision—which formally affected only the District of Columbia, a federal enclave—revealed a solid conservative majority behind an individual's right to gun possession, and the only matter left to be decided was whether states were affected, too. At oral argument in March, none of the five justices in the Heller majority suggested any reason to distinguish between states and the federal government when it comes to gun rights.
On the Docket

Review the cases in the Supreme Court's 2009-2010 term, plus details on the justices themselves.

* More photos and interactive graphics

The Bill of Rights originally bound only the federal government, not the states. The 14th Amendment, ratified after the Union victory in the Civil War, altered the constitutional order to ensure the federal government could protect individuals from abusive state governments.

The Supreme Court initially read such authority narrowly, but in the 20th century it developed a path to extend constitutional rights under the amendment's command that states deprive no one of "liberty…without due process of law."

Through the Due Process Clause, the 20th century court eventually came to hold that states cannot restrict Americans' right to the First Amendment's freedoms of speech, press and religion; the Fourth Amendment's search and seizure protections; the Fifth Amendment's right against self-incrimination; and other provisions Americans consider fundamental. Monday's ruling adds the Second Amendment's right to bear arms to this list of fundamental rights.

"Unless we turn back the clock or adopt a special incorporation test applicable only to the Second Amendment," gun rights must be recognized everywhere, Justice Alito wrote.

The 14th Amendment's framers, he wrote, wanted to ensure blacks in the South could protect themselves from white supremacists.

Justice Stephen Breyer, whose separate dissent was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, said that even with Heller on the books, there still was no rationale to extend the Second Amendment.

Rather than ensuring that blacks have guns, the 14th Amendment was aimed at ensuring that weapons laws applied equally to all citizens, Justice Breyer wrote.

The day was a bittersweet one, with Justice Stevens saying good-bye after 34 years on the high court and Justice Ginsburg mourning the death of her husband the previous day.

[tacticool]

Good news

But

How many licenses has DC issued since the Heller ruling 2 years ago?

[The Annoyed Man]

Good news

But

How many licenses has DC issued since the Heller ruling 2 years ago?

Point five three?

[TLE2]

I was most enlightened by to quoted justices:

"It is clear that the framers and ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty," wrote Justice Samuel Alito in his majority opinion.

In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens said the majority should have left gun-control decisions to states and cities. "The elected branches have shown themselves to be perfectly capable of safeguarding the interest in keeping and bearing arms," wrote Justice Stevens. "Today's decision invites an avalanche of litigation that could mire the federal courts in fine-grained determinations about which state and local regulations" survive.

If he had just left earlier...

The day was a bittersweet one, with Justice Stevens saying good-bye after 34 years on the high court and Justice Ginsburg mourning the death of her husband the previous day.

[ELB]

Good news

But

How many licenses has DC issued since the Heller ruling 2 years ago?

Point five three?

One of the opponents crying about this decision made the argument that the self-defense purpose was nonsense because DC has issued "only" 900 permits since Heller. (He failed to mention that DC has made the process as onerous and expensive as possible.) I can't recall where I read this right now, but it was in one of the many articles or blog postings that have been generated today.

[The Annoyed Man]

Good news

But

How many licenses has DC issued since the Heller ruling 2 years ago?

Point five three?

One of the opponents crying about this decision made the argument that the self-defense purpose was nonsense because DC has issued "only" 900 permits since Heller. (He failed to mention that DC has made the process as onerous and expensive as possible.) I can't recall where I read this right now, but it was in one of the many articles or blog postings that have been generated today.

A more accurate analysis by said crybaby would have been to consider the total number of applicants against the total number of permits granted.

But then he'd have to entertain those pesky facts.