I agree with you there - that's where this is going to end up - it remains with the states, with a federal "don't cross this line" minimum protection in place.
how the SCOTUS crafts this, is going to be interesting. I wonder if anthony kennedy was a part of any decisions on 2A while he was on the circuit court.
It is possible that the good guys could lose at the SCOTUS. I think Alito, Roberts, Thomas and most likely Scalia are on board to at least some extent, but Kennedy has a very interesting idea of liberty. He's a cherry picker when it comes to constitutional rights. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him side with the libs on this one. Despite how many Democrat(ic) Congressmen vote on the issue, I expect Souter, Stevens, Ginsburg, and Breyer to come out strongly against the 2A. Will Kennedy be able to stand up to the NYSLIMES, WPOST, etc? We shall see.
A big sign will be how he votes on the PBA case. Yes, they are different issues, but given the fact that he wrote a strong dissent last time, he should be ready to overrule Carhart. The key issue is how stable and sure of himself he is at this point in time. If he doesn't overrule Carhart, and either votes to strike down the PBA ban or writes some garbage that guts it in practice (if not in theory), then we're in trouble. We'll never get a strong "conservative" opinion out of him if he's not even willing to stick to his very strong views of seven years ago.
I agree. (As you no doubt surmised, I made my previous reply before reading this post)
Well, that line just got moved a whole lot further back in the sand.