Supreme Court rules that all Americans have fundamental right to bear arms

The Supreme Court ruled for the first time Monday that the Second Amendment provides all Americans a fundamental right to bear arms, a long-sought victory for gun rights advocates who have chafed at federal, state and local efforts to restrict gun ownership.

The court was considering a restrictive handgun law in Chicago and one of its suburbs that was similar to the District law that it ruled against in 2008. The 5 to 4 decision does not strike any other gun control measures currently in place, but it provides a legal basis for challenges across the country where gun owners think that government has been too restrictive.

"It is clear that the Framers . . . counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty," Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote for the conservatives on the court.

The victory might be more symbolic than substantive, at least initially. Few cities have laws as restrictive as those in Chicago and Washington.

Alito said government can restrict gun ownership in certain instances but did not elaborate on what those would be. That will be determined in future litigation.

Alito said the court had made clear in its 2008 decision that it was not casting doubt on such long-standing measures as keeping felons and the mentally ill from possessing guns or keeping guns out of "sensitive places" such as schools and government buildings.

"We repeat those assurances here," Alito wrote. "Despite municipal respondents' doomsday proclamations, [the decision] does not imperil every law regulating firearms."

The decision came on the final day of the term and at a time of great change for the court. Justice John Paul Stevens sat at the mahogany bench for the last time, and will end more than 34...

This is a bad ruling as it will require that we punish holes in the blanket federal ban on guns for them “special” exceptions which will in the end compromises our true freedom which comes from the interstate gun market.
In other-words this ruling is untenable given the nature of the Federal court. This will hurt our gun rights not help them.

The furthermore incorporation of yet anther federal constitutional law upon the states.

Read Thomas' opinion linked in comment# 1. The first eight of the Bill of Rights were supposed to apply to the States with the privileges and immunities clause of the 14th Amendment. Slaughterhouse screwed it up.

The silencer ban really needs to be challenged by a plaintiff (or group of plaintiffs) in an area where target shooting on private residential property is common and generally accepted, but where neighbors are bothered by the noise. It needs to be challenged as infringing on the rights of people who enjoy peace and quiet.

I’ve long thought that the real purpose of the silencer ban was to discourage widespread shooting on private property that isn’t designated as a range for private club or public use, with the goal of de-normalizing family shooting practice on their own properties, promoting the idea that people who like to keep up their shooting skills are anomalous “gun nuts”, and promoting local ordinances prohibiting discharging a firearm within city/town limits. It’s certainly never had the slightest utility in crime prevention, since makeshift silencers can be whipped up easily and people intending to use guns in crime are obviously not going to be afraid of violating the silencer ban.

Scalia's opinion was a browbeating of Stevens.

It's wonderful. He eviscerates Stevens.

[snip]
That Justice Stevens is not applying any version of Palko is clear from comparing, on the one hand, the rights he believes are covered, with, on the other hand, his conclusion that the right to keep and bear arms is not covered. Rights that pass his test include not just those “relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, and child rearing and education,” but also rights against “[g]overnment action that shocks the conscience, pointlessly infringes settled expectations, trespasses into sensitive private realms or life choices without adequate justification, [or] perpetrates gross injustice.” Post , at 23 (internal quotation marks omitted). Not all such rights are in, however, since only “ some fundamental aspects of personhood, dignity, and the like” are protected, post , at 24 (emphasis added). Exactly what is covered is not clear. But whatever else is in, he knows that the right to keep and bear arms is out, despite its being as “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition,” Washington v. Glucksberg , 521 U. S. 702, 721 (1997) (internal quotation marks omitted), as a right can be, see District of Columbia v. Heller , 554 U. S. ___, ___–___, ___–___, ___–___ (2008) (slip op., at 20–21, 26–30, 41–44). I can find no other explanation for such certitude except that Justice Stevens, despite his forswearing of “personal and private notions,” post , at 21 (internal quotation marks omitted), deeply believes it should be out.
The subjective nature of Justice Stevens ’ standard is also apparent from his claim that it is the courts’ prerogative—indeed their duty —to update the Due Process Clause so that it encompasses new freedoms the Framers were too narrow-minded to imagine, post , at 19–20, and n. 21. Courts, he proclaims, must “do justice to [the Clause’s] urgent call and its open texture” by exercising the “interpretive discretion the latter embodies.” Post , at 21. (Why the people are not up to the task of deciding what new rights to protect, even though it is they who are authorized to make changes, see U. S. Const., Art. V, is never explained. ² ) And it would be “judicial abdication” for a judge to “tur[n] his back” on his task of determining what the Fourteenth Amendment covers by “outsourc[ing]” the job to “historical sentiment,” post , at 20—that is, by being guided by what the American people throughout our history have thought. It is only we judges, exercising our “own reasoned judgment,” post , at 15, who can be entrusted with deciding the Due Process Clause’s scope—which rights serve the Amendment’s “central values,” post , at 23—which basically means picking the rights we want to protect and discarding those we do not. [snip]

Cordially,

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