Here is an excerpt from today’s Washington Post regarding the arguments at the Supreme Court yesterday:
A majority of the Supreme Court indicated a readiness yesterday to settle decades of constitutional debate over the meaning of the Second Amendment by declaring that it provides an individual right to own a gun for self-defense.
Such a finding could doom the District of Columbia’s ban on private handgun possession, the country’s toughest gun-control law, and significantly change the tone and direction of the nation’s political battles over gun control.
During oral arguments that drew spectators who had waited for days to be in the courtroom, there was far more skepticism among the justices about the constitutionality of the District’s ban on private handgun possession than defense of it.
Read the whole thing. Cato Senior Fellow Bob Levy, Alan Gura, and Clark Neily did a superb job of advocacy–with their legal brief, the oral argument, and in media interviews.
Only one problem. They have so thoroughly demolished the notion that the right to keep and bear arms only pertains to persons serving in the militia or National Guard that most people will not truly appreciate their achievement. In two years (less?) people will say “wasn’t it always so?”
I expect a favorable ruling in the Heller case but I also expect DC Mayor Adrian Fenty to obstruct the ruling as much as he possibly can. So, if I’m right, the way in which to view this case is as an important victory in an on-going struggle.
