"The court concluded that it's an individual right untethered to military or government necessity."

The WORD of JESUS is indeed spreading among the Courts! Christian Militias will at last proliferate throughout the land!

Admonished from HIS PRESENCE will be the Atheist Scientists and their so-called "statistics" and their Cornell "education". No further will God's Chickenpluckin' Children be harassed for praising Jesus and learning to shoot their weapons in HIS name!

As old Churchill might say, "This is not the end, nor is it the beginning of the end; rather, it's the end of the beginning."

Expect a lot more court cases and a lot of wins and losses on both sides, friends. It ain't over till it's over.

But if the gun-control people really want gun control, they'd better push for repeal of the 2nd Amendment, IMHO, because the Supremes have handed the pro-rights crowd a very big club with which to clobber the antis over the head again and again.

Yay! at least one good decision from this court. It's just affirming a right we had all along. Now i am sure there will be a flurry of posts from people from other country deriding us and the naive and unrealistic anti gun haters who actually believe gun control keeps down violence.

"because the Supremes have handed the pro-rights crowd a very big club with which to clobber the antis over the head again and again."

good. last time i checked it was one of the bill of rights. the gun rights issue is one good reason i never associate myself with the Left

Look at the justices that voted to strike down the ban, and those that didn't. Those that didn't were appointed by Democrats and those who voted for striking it down were appointed by Republicans.

And yet, we constantly hear the opinion in the posts on this site that 'there is no difference' between the two....

I beg to differ.

On this issue, the liberals have carried the day. It is a good day, indeed.

Finally, the people of D.C. are permitted self-defense within the home against invasion of privacy by Warentless Wiretaps and No-Knock Break-ins.
Now if only we can do something about Federal fondling and voyeurism at transportion checkpoints.

The Court is stacked with Bushie appointees. How did you expect they would rule? They're going to rule to support the "God, Guts, and Guns" crowd.

The only thing this ruling proves is that the Constitution needs to be amended to be more resrictive on private ownership of handguns.

It has been abundantly clear for some time that the 2nd Amendment can and would be open to misinterpretation in favor of unrestricted gun ownership. The 2nd Amendment can and should be amended now to prohibit certain types of ownership rights for individuals. In the meantime, this ruling is likely to have little effect on crime rates in DC, because Virginia and Maryland were always only 10 minutes away, so anyone who lived in DC could easily purchase a handgun from one of those states.

In any case, gun ownership is just another false god being worshipped in the U.S. right now, along with wealth, celebrity, beauty, youth, drugs, abortion, etc. Like all the other false gods, this false god will fail you -- if it hasn't already.

re dmia 1:35pm

gun-restricting laws only prevent law-abiding people from owning guns.

criminals by definition don't obey laws, with the result that jursidictions with the most stringent laws seem to have the highest rates of murder and armed felonies.

please don't presume to tinker with the constitution until you've grasped these concepts.

And this is the same SCOTUS that supports child RAPE !

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080626/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_child_rape;_ylt=AiLms.bHcs0ggF6asAstLFFG2ocA

Okay, I'm as lefty and liberal as an anarchist can be. Having stated that, this is a fuggin' GREAT decision. The people should never have to beg for the right of personal and collective self-defense from anyone, especially a criminal government.

Look, if you think having a weapon is bad, then don't carry. However, you have no right to ask me nor anyone else to refuse to protect their lives.

Besides, as great of a decision as I think this is, the fact is that the fascists will find a way to get your weapons. Trust me, the one thing that all governments fear is a informed and armed citizenry. So, if you want to protect your right to protect your asses, don't sleep. They're not finished.

Humans are too stupid to be trusted with guns.
Its that's simple.
People who say: let people have guns are way too trusting of human nature--very naive.
Let everyone have a nuke as self protection and see how many detonate them.

The key to satisfy the gun nuts is restrict access to all guns-for everyone
that way criminals wont be give a pass.
Also make the ammunition ingredients the same class as uranium. Do that and then the gun nuts will be happy. They can have all the guns they want to stare at, polish, feel cool. etc
The only good thing is that hunters are so stupid they blast each other and their kin all the time. Good.

I remember when I shocked one of my conservative friends by saying I opposed gun control.

For the same reason I oppose the war on drugs, or any other program that regulates the sale of something "undesirable" to the black market -- it doesn't work! Maybe it's the libertarian in me, but if Blackwater can own guns, and the police can own guns, and the army can own guns, shouldn't we be able to own guns? Maybe it's the anarchist in me, but I feel that the police are useless when it comes to protecting the populace. Why give a select group of people the ability to hold power over the rest of us?

Canada owns plenty of guns, but they have less crime.

The cause of violent crime often lies in poverty. If we want to end gun violence, and people getting sick and tired of a malevolent system and going on shooting sprees, we should create a more compassionate system and make sure we work to eliminate poverty and discrimination.

What I do believe in, is forcing gun-makers to install more safety features. Most accidental gun deaths result from people not knowing a weapon is loaded, so how hard would it be to create an indicator that warns of a loaded gun.

kelmer,
following your logic, humans are too stupid to be trusted with:
the vote
their wages
their bodies
...
pretty soon you start sounding like a repuglican

I'm a Canadian (he confessed, modestly and politely) so we have our own Charter of Rights and Freedoms that we get to wrangle about. And we should mind our own business...but USA wrangling is so tempting to us...

When I try to follow you Americans in your arguments about this amendment, it reminds me of the observation that Americans and English are two nations divided by the same language. I figure that on the wording of this amendment that I fall into the same perplexity: it seems to me that it says that a State of the Union, like Michigan or California, to be free, has the right to have an armed state militia, unfettered by the feds. I don't see individual gun consumer rights in there at all.

I wonder if there are other constitutions that give individual citizens such a right?

And...why don't you Americans amend the thing to read that indicdual citizens can own and use the following weapons:...?

Perception is so right! The fact is, ban guns and people will kill with knives. Ban knives and they'll use clubs. Where will it stop? Murder has been prohibited in most cultures since there's been people. Prosecute or kill the murderers but, banning weapons do nothing to stop these things from happening.

Also, why is it that even so-called progressives refuse to acknowledge the link between poverty and crime? If you make rich people, you're going to create poor folk and some very desperate or sociopathic poor people will commit crimes.

But, if nothing else, if people like the gubmint and Blackwater have guns, I sure as hell want mine. I will not stand there and be slaughtered by these goons simply because some high-minded pacifist decided that not only should they not have weapons but, I shouldn't either. This is madness.

I just wish the court was as assertive in protecting the other nine amendments in the Bill of Rights.

Can somebody explain how owning guns keeps crime low??

I actually live in DC and to tell the truth, I think this doesn't really change things much. The only way you'd be able to legally shoot someone and claim self-defense is a home-invasion scenario. Those aren't prevalent in DC so quite honestly, I just don't see any reason to overturn it, other than to fall in line with the constitution. Color me neutral...

I will say that since this country's probably gonna implode due to its own stupidity/hubris, I'm glad we can get strapped up before the gov't attempts some crazy executive order 51 bullshit. I'll be like John Woo - double 92fs'ing these mofos.

I'm a socialist by nature but a Texan by birth so in my eyes this is a good decision. The armed individuals of the citizenry become the militia in times of need. I live in Chicago and gun violence is out of control. Regular citizens are trapped. The CPD and gang members shoot up the streets and hidden secret guns are found by children and used on children. over 30 deaths by handgun violence so far this year in a city that bans handguns. Prohibition has never worked. Education and regulation AKA common sense are all the gun control we need.

I think most people do fail to understand the history behind the 2nd amendment.

Think back to Lexington and Concorde. The people of MA were already essentially in rebellion at that time. As such, they were collecting arms to defend themselves against the imperial troops. The British general sent troops out to seize these arms, and that's what led to Lexington and Concorde.

Also, the idea was to create a weak government overall which did not have a monopoly on the use of force. The idea was always that if the government wanted to use the force then the people had to agree to implement that. This is the vision of a government where there was little or not standing army, and the police forces were limited to just a few people.

Thus, if the government wanted to use force outside the US, it had to have the militia volunteer to come bring their arms and go fight. Or, if the sheriff wanted to use force, the citizens had to show up and form a posse.

This is a key element of the idea of democracy that we were trying to form in this country. The core idea was not to have a government that had the power on its own to overpower the people. This was a protection that we've lost.

"Can somebody explain how owning guns keeps crime low??"

Its the John Wayne fantasy that citizens are all going to pull out the guns and kill the bad guys.

How can you have a Christian household without Guns?
Take the ingredients Guns, Paranoia, and Ignorance. Skim off a little Self-Esteem. Add a dash of Gullability. Simmer until well agitated and spread thickly over Bigotry. Bingo! Instant Christian.

I left out "Pour into a pot of Hypocrisy" before Skimming the Self-Esteem. Can't leave THAT out!

Dablackanarch: "If you make rich people, you're going to create poor folk and some very desperate or sociopathic poor people will commit crimes."

I agree with your post 100% and would just like to refine a bit, if I may. WHEN very desperate or sociopathic poor people see how the rich people got to be that way (ie. commit crimes) they will attempt to do the same. Hey, they might even be able to be Preznit of the U.S.of A. someday!

Ladybug:

I personally don't think owning guns keeps crime low. I think eliminating the root causes of crime -- poverty and social injustice -- keeps crime low.

However, I also don't think banning guns keeps crime low.

Samson:

Yeah, tell me about it. Too bad the second amendment is the only one the conservatives care about.

I repeat . . . .

Gun laws only prevent law-abiding people from owning guns.
Criminals by definition don't obey laws. Thus criminals have guns.

Leave the constitution alone . . .
The Bill of Rights was written for a purpose and everyone here should respect that purpose . . . You are certainly using it by having your say.

Excellent point, Samson!!

The 2nd ammendment has everything to do with protecting people from the tyranny of government. This is a key component of democracy and it is currently very weak. People have litte collective power to fight against the tyrrany of the government.

Banning handguns and assault rifles is a way to protect communities. It does not threaten democracy, if anything it promotes it by keeping people safe(when coupled with regulation of the illegal gun market). The telecommunications act threatens the collective power of the people-- this is why we need to protect ourselves against government! But it takes a lot more than guns.

ladybug: Vigilantism?

Can't think of another reason why flooding an area with weapons would help reduce violence.

So, leftk, does the regulation of the illegal gun market work as well as the regulation of the illegal drug market? I sure hope so.

Sun827:"Prohibition has never worked."

That's the nail that needs to be constantly hit on its head. Alcohol prohibition was lesson one, drug prohibition lesson two. I too am a Texan and am pleased with the court's decision. To answer Ladybug's quesstion "Can somebody explain how owning guns keeps crime low??"...an individual is far less likely to commit a crime against someone who may be armed than someone who is not. It's that simple. I would love to see a decrease in violence of all types, but eliminating drug prohibition would do a whole lot more towards ending violent crime than stricter gun laws could ever hope to do.

Personally perception, I don't care about whether or not making guns illegal stops the problem, but I resent the kind of libertarianism that points to prohibition as the biggest disaster in American history. I respect the prohibitionists in many ways-- as did Gandhi-- many of them were progressives. While banning alcohol may have been misguided their efforts certainly haven't been as destructive as the free market or militarism-- which most libertarians are pretty ok with. I applaud those who try to keep communities safer by pushing for anti-gun laws. Maybe it's only one piece of the puzzle but hey its a start.

Personally perception, I don't care about whether or not making guns illegal stops the problem, but I resent the kind of libertarianism that points to prohibition as the biggest disaster in American history. I respect the prohibitionists in many ways-- as did Gandhi-- many of them were progressives. While banning alcohol may have been misguided their efforts certainly haven't been as destructive as the free market or militarism-- which most libertarians are pretty ok with. I applaud those who try to keep communities safer by pushing for anti-gun laws. Maybe it's only one piece of the puzzle but hey its a start.

Only goes to prove that the American power structure truly is insane. It is my fervent hope that American "culture", beliefs, ideas, are contained within its borders, and that they are seen by the civilized world as the pariahs that they have become.

"I applaud those who try to keep communities safer by pushing for anti-gun laws."

How do anti-gun laws keep communities safer?

I think the 2nd Amendment is the most clearly stated of any in the bill of rights. "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." That's about as black and white as it gets.

Interesting how Scalia stated empahtically that restoring Habeas rights will lead to the death of more Americans, while facilitating hand guns for all in DC. Americans need to understand that it is other Americans not foreigners who pose the greatest threat to our security, not to mention rights.

Every other part of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution in general is being shredded and in the garbage can and here we are celebrating some sort of victory as if the right of keeping a frigging gun in you home or stuffed in you pocket makes everything OK, geeze, we got a little crumb tossed to us. Now we can kill some robber or fend ourselves off when the military wants to take us out-yeah, so you shoot your kid or wife sometime mistaking her/him for that robber you have so patiently waited for a chance shoot and vindicate packing, just a little collateral damage. Idiots!

Funny that the same supreme court justices who are "upholding" the second ammendment rights are stealing every other Constitutional right and expanding the power of the government over individuals. Well said beartown & barnburner.

Banning handguns can be a first step in keeping communities safer. Do you think the poor who live in neighborhoods plagued with gun violence are concerned about gun rights? Hell no.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Hmm..sounds like it has to do with militias which were used to defend the state and defend the people against tyranny. This isn't the problem in D.C.

I'm sorry I have to call a spade a spade. Guns rights people like guntotinliberal are right-wingers.

Every citizen is in the militia, when it comes down to it.

It says "the right of THE PEOPLE" not "the right of those formally involved in some kind of government agency"

I don't think its fair to call me a "right-winger" because I believe in the ENTIRE Constitution. Right-wingers only care about one piece of the Constitution, albeit the piece that got a little reinforcement today. These days, I'll take my Constitutional reinforcement wherever I can get it.

Barn Burner, you're the kind of idiot 'liberal' that gives all of them a bad name. No one is advocating shooting their own kids or any dumb shit like that. As a matter of fact, banning weapons means less training on how to use them properly and thus, will tend to cause the very accident you described in your weak ad hominem.

As for fending off the military, I don't think that will be a problem, as the vast majority come from the poorer elements of our country. It's the foreign armies and mercenaries we should be afraid of.

I agree with leftk that it is silly for right-wingers to carry on about constitutional rights, and only really pay attention to this one.

I still don't agree that gun control makes communities safer. I think you really hit the nail on the head leftk. It is a system plagued by militarism, vast economic inequalities (as a result of free market devotion), irrational and xenophobic fears, and the destruction of communities via globalization that is at the root of violent crime. I think we really need to point out that globalization is at the root of community degradation, which in turn leads to gangs, religious cults, and other destructive subcultures -- not to mention increases in suicide, mental illness, and addiction.

I too break with libertarians on these issues, mainly because I don't see corporations and markets as having the same rights as individuals. Corporations are power structures and should be feared as much as any government.

I also feel the repeal of drug prohibition would do more than gun control to address violent crime. (as Shawn points out.) But that's still not going after the root of the problem mentioned above.

Let's not forget that, while Prohibition may not be the "biggest disaster in American history," it still led to organized crime and a quadrupling of the murder rate. Let's also not forget that prohibition has never led to a decrease in what it prohibits. Gun control will not take guns out of the hands of criminals. It will allow criminals to profit by selling guns to other criminals.

As someone mentioned earlier, take away guns, people will use knives, take away knives, they'll use clubs. As long as people are still driven to make bad choices as a result of their social settings, violent crime will continue to exist at destructive levels.

We do have to recognize, however, that even if our society was one devoted to community, peace, justice, and sustainability, violent crime would still exist because people aren't perfect and we make mistakes. There would just be substantially less of it.

I stole this off of a gun-nut website, but it makes pretty good sense to me:

In his popular edition of Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (1803), St. George Tucker (see also), a lawyer, Revolutionary War militia officer, legal scholar, and later a U.S. District Court judge (appointed by James Madison in 1813), wrote of the Second Amendment:

The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, and this without any qualification as to their condition or degree, as is the case in the British government.

In the appendix to the Commentaries, Tucker elaborates further:

This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty... The right of self-defense is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Whenever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction. In England, the people have been disarmed, generally, under the specious pretext of preserving the game: a never failing lure to bring over the landed aristocracy to support any measure, under that mask, though calculated for very different purposes. True it is, their bill of rights seems at first view to counteract this policy: but the right of bearing arms is confined to protestants, and the words suitable to their condition and degree, have been interpreted to authorise the prohibition of keeping a gun or other engine for the destruction of game, to any farmer, or inferior tradesman, or other person not qualified to kill game. So that not one man in five hundred can keep a gun in his house without being subject to a penalty.

Not only are Tucker's remarks solid evidence that the militia clause was not intended to restrict the right to keep arms to active militia members, but he speaks of a broad right – Tucker specifically mentions self-defense.

guntotinliberal-

right. the claiuse you quote does seem clear. By itself. but that is preceeded by
the main clause reads "a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of the state...." which is why the question has been so hotly debated. This suggests that the guns will be used in a well regulated militia, not by every John Wayne wannabe in town.

I would just like to point something out. The amendment says the right of the PEOPLE will not be infringed. NOT the right of the STATES. Read the whole Constitution, not just the 2nd amendment. Crap, just look at the 10th amendment. Doesn't the 10th amendment conclude with 'the states OR the people'? Doesn't this demonstrate they are seperate entities?

The Second Amendment was writen in 1789.

In 1789- there was hardly such a thing as a hand gun. There were rifles- and they where hand made and very expensive. This being so, only a rich minority could afford to own them. They generally kept them locked up down at the local armory as well.

In 1849, Colt Co. was founded. They were successful at miniaturizing the design of firearms. They also invented mass production (Ford did not invent mass production)- thereby drastically reducing the cost of manufacturing a firearm and simultaneously making large volume production possible. They were also a capitalist company and profit driven. Now that they could make lots of weapons- they needed people to buy them- so they advertised. This is about the time that the NRA came into play- helping companies like Colt advertise and lobby for gun ownership for every man (except blacks, foreigners, and Mexicans of course). Soon there was a proliferation of concealable weapons everywhere- and crime and murder rates skyrocketed.

The founding fathers never anticipated the advent of mass production of firearms- some 60 years after they wrote the Second Amendment. They also didn't anticipate the miniaturization of guns and the drastically lower cost of owning a firearm. They wrote they second amendment to give themselves the opportunity to maintain an organized militia- no matter what BushCo. Supreme Appointees think. The founding fathers were not stupid guys- they never would've put forward a Second Amendment that would one day lead to school children gunning down their classmates on a regular basis. The amendment is out of date and out of touch with the current reality. It is a disgrace that the highest court of the land is today siding with Gun Manufacturing Corporate Profiteers- instead of your own children who may never get to enjoy their right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness because one of their troubled teenage classmates blasted a hole in your child's head.

...except for federal criminals or mentally-ill ... that's our government!

fakedemocracy;

When the Founding Fathers wrote the 1st amendment, they did not forsee mass communication and mass media.
When they wrote the fifth and sixth amendments, they did not forsee global terrorist organizations commiting perfidy and mass murder to order to blackmail nation-states.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

And in all this high minded blather about constitutional rights, nobody notices that many countries, free of this mad obsession with owning a handgun, have much lower gun crime rates and much lower murder rates than the USA. Look not at them, though. That would be unAmerican. Americans love guns more than life itself.