limited, narrowly tailored specific exceptions or restrictions for particular cases that are reasonable and not inconsistent with the right of Americans generally to individually keep and bear their private arms as historically understood in this country. .It seems to me that the definition of the above could keep an army of lawyers in court with government prosecutors for an eternity, given the plethora of (B.S.) firearms laws in place. And the citizen would be hung out to dry fighting it all and paying the legal expenses. While better than a "2A is not an individual right" decision, I am not particularly encouraged. :-(
Someone convince me I am being too pessimistic.
"No doubt the special interests and academics on both sides of this debate will take great interest in the fact that at long last some court has determined (albeit in dicta) that the Second Amendment bestows an individual right. The real issue, however, is the fact that whatever the nature or parameters of the Second Amendment right, be it collective or individual, it is a right subject to reasonable regulation. The debate, therefore, over the nature of the right is misplaced. In the final analysis, whether the right to keep and bear arms is collective or individual is of no legal consequence. It is, as duly noted by the majority opinion, a right subject to reasonable regulation. If determining that Emerson had an individual Second Amendment right that could have been successfully asserted as a defense against the charge of violating § 922(g)(8), then the issue would be cloaked with legal significance. As it stands, it makes no difference. Section 922(g)(8) is simply another example of a reasonable restriction on whatever right is contained in the Second Amendment."
Judge Parker along with his fellows has missed the entire point of the RKBA; the 1895 SC decision in US v. Cruikshank was the last case in which the ORIGINAL intent and meaning of the 2nd was enunciated, to wit: The Bill of Rights in general, and the 2nd Amendment in particular, do not GRANT anything to anybody, they merely (if such a word could be used) reiterate what the Founders considered NATURAL or GOD-GIVEN rights; Cruikshank said that the RKBA existed BEFORE the Constitution was written and that, therefore, no government could LEGALLY infringe that natural, human right.
I concur, but I'm not pessimistic. It's still a partial victory and useful to advancing Liberty.
JWinNC