Supreme Court Rules Against Washington D.C. Handgun Laws

The really sad thing is that it has taken so long for the Supreme Court to weigh in on the gun issue. The lack of promptness has empowered the anti-gun lobbying Liberals over the past 40 years and now it’s going to take decades to undue the damage.

Court Rules Second Amendment Is Individual Right To Bear Arms

By Associated Press – via NYSun.com
June 26, 2008

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court says Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense and hunting, the justices’ first definitive pronouncement on gun rights in American history.

The court’s 5-4 ruling strikes down the District of Columbia’s 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment. The decision goes further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most firearms laws intact.

The court had not conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment since its ratification in 1791. The amendment reads: “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.”

The basic issue for the justices was whether the amendment protects an individual’s right to own guns no matter what, or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia.

Justice Scalia, writing for four colleagues, said the Constitution does not permit “the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home.”

In dissent, Justice Stevens wrote that the majority “would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons.”

He said such evidence “is nowhere to be found.”

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