DC v Heller Decision

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sat, 28 Jun 2008 13:22:42 GMT  <== RKBA ==> 

As you've likely read everywhere, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday, June 26, 2008 on DC v Heller. They held the decision of the lower court, commanding DC to give Mr. Heller a permit to possess his pistol in his house, assuming he hadn't lost his right to do so due to a felony or mental illness. Justice Scalia wrote the opinion for the 5-4 majority. Justice Stevens wrote the dissent. I skimmed the opinion, but not the dissent. The general philosophy there was good. We have an individual right to keep and bear arms (properly defined as possessing and carrying around), which predates and is protected by the Second Amendment. But, and it's a big but, the state may restrict this right with licensing and registration, and concealed carry may be restricted. Typical narrow ruling that really only forces "shall issue" for DC's licenses, but will likely eventually force all state licensing to be "shall issue". It might also make it difficult to ban open carry. Scalia also forbade the banning of whole classes of generally-used weapons, but whether this will be found to forbid so-called "assault weapons" bans remains to be seen.

Bottom line: They won't be coming door to door to collect our guns any time soon, so there shouldn't be a need for a shooting war on that account. Had the decision gone with the minority, I would be expecting the war to begin soon.

Here are a bunch of links I collected:

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Comments (4):

Thanks for the link

Submitted by Dave Markowitz on Sun, 29 Jun 2008 12:57:32 GMT

Thanks for the link, Bill!

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DC vs Heller

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 05 Jul 2008 13:28:13 GMT

Since the decision, has the crime rate, gun crime rate, etc., gone down in D.C.? It seems to me that since it is now legal, the criminals would leave since they are cowards and don't want to be shot.

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Not legal yet

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sat, 05 Jul 2008 21:08:00 GMT

Well, DC has not made handgun possession in the home legal yet. They've been instructed to do so, but I don't remember seeing a deadline in the ruling. I'm sure they'll drag their heals as long as they think they can get away with.

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