The Discerning Texan
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
Tuesday, March 18, 2008

New Hope for Gun Owners?

The Supremes seem to be leaning towards tossing out the DC Gun Ban. The Court may actually decide in this ruling that "the right to bear arms" is not tied to any "militia" as argued by the left for many years.

Glenn Reynolds adds:

LOS ANGELES TIMES: U.S. Supreme Court seems poised to strike down D.C. handgun ban. I certainly hope so, though GOP partisans might prefer that it went the other way, since that would make a McCain presidency much more likely.

UPDATE: More here. Predicting votes based on oral arguments is iffy, but there seems to be a lot of agreement that there are at least 5 votes here. I hope that's right.

MORE: Ilya Somin: "Unlike some of my co-conspirators I don't have the expertise to opine on the question of how far a constitutional right to bear arms should extend. However, experience in other areas of constitutional law suggests that any victory for individual rights will be a hollow one if the Court defers to the government in determining how broad the right should be."

Somin is right about one thing: the Bush Administration's Amicus Brief was a disgrace. But from what I heard from the justices today, it seems that there may be at least 5 lined up to say once and for all that "militias" have nothing whatsoever with the right of individuals to bear arms and to defend themselves. And that would be one hell of a good start.

Stay tuned, but things are looking good.
DiscerningTexan, 3/18/2008 07:40:00 PM |