Today the Supreme Court struck down, on a 5-4 vote, Washington D.C's decades old law banning handgun ownership.

The Second Amendment to the Constitution states: “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.”

Is “people” singular or plural in its usage here? Today’s Supreme Court ruling says it is singular and discarded the language on “a well regulated militia”. This ruling would appear to put at risk all laws regulating weapons ownership, including fully automatic weapons, perhaps even tanks. And what about felons? Can more Virginia Tech’s be heading our way?

The wording of the Amendment is clumsy at best. Should there be a new Constitutional Amendment to clean up the language regarding weapons ownership in this country? Is it even possible to craft a new amendment on such an emotional and controversial issue? While I have my doubts, I also think this ruling rewrites the amendment anyway. Is this what the American people want and deserve?

Or appears that way based on the syllabus...

The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.

Another excerpt....

Because Heller conceded at oral argument that the D. C. licensing law is permissible if it is not enforced arbitrarily and capriciously, the Court assumes that a license will satisfy his prayer for relief and does not address the licensing requirement.

Scalia chose his words carefully. It'll be analyzed to death in the coming days, but I think the bottom line is, unless you live in one of the five or six cities with trigger-lock requirements or one of the two with actual bans, little has changed. The court (barely) found an individual right to gun ownership based on the idea that "militia" means any able-bodied person, but didn't define that right beyond the words "in common use at the time." Common to who? The public? The military? I think Scalia left that intentionally vague. How and what to license is still left to state and local governments, which determines "commonly used" if the public is your standard.

In short... I think the Court pretty much preserved the status quo (with the exception of a few localities that probably did go too far). I'm not a Constitutional scholar though, so we'll have to wait for the real analysis.

The "analysis" we're likely to get from constitutional scholars is unlikely to be of much use. It is only the continuing court decisions at all levels seeking to apply this ruling that will have any meaning. Scholars may influence those rulings but their predictive ability, in my opinion, is highly suspect.

There is nothing in the 2nd Amendment that is ambiguous or needs re-writing, other than to those with sour grapes about todays affirmation of its original intent. It says the "right of the people", and the 10th Amendment clearly delineates who the people, the states, and the Conrgess are....

Obviously, the only thing that matters is how our state and local governments react. Though I have to believe that predictions made by experts on how they'll react will be better than my own. God help us if thats not the case.

Mostly I think that worries about people carrying M16s in the street are probably unfounded at this point, as is Sarge's giddy reaction in his own top post

I have never thought of the 2nd as clumbsy,but from
the perspective of adressing an individuals rights
you are correct.

I never seen the 2nd as anything more than the
framer's very clear intention to ensure the rights of
the people to bear arms in a militia - something that
was prohibited under English rule.

However just because the 2nd, in my mind, doesn't
ensure rights, there is nothing that prohibits a citizen
gun rights either. Or the courts regulating them reasonably

The court made a reasonable decision in the
absence of any concrete direction.

Has been on the books for 32 years. This ruling also flys in the face of the 1939 Miller ruling. So if precedence has no bearing then this Court is legislating from the bench -- the Roberts court then is a mirror image of the Warren court. So much for strict construction and original intent arguments.

How is it that you so easily find the 2nd so
understandable, when Supreme Court Justices
have been struggling for years on this?

Even in this case the split was 5-4.

Bsides, the majoirty ruling had nothing to do with
the second amendment. Merely that it does prohibit
handguns.

"Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in the landmark 5-to-4 decision, said the Constitution does not allow “the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home.”

You make my point.

What about "A well regulated Militia". That too is part of the language in the 2nd Amendment. The language in the 2nd Amendment is silent as regards felons and the mentally ill yet the courts have seen fit to except these groups from 2nd Amendment protection. As you can see, there is plenty that is ambiguous about the 2nd Amendment.

To state that today's ruling is "affirmation of .. original intent" is just plain silly.

You'll never catch me defending Scalia as a principled jurist. He's a partisan hack, obvious to anyone who's read anything he's written in the last few years. Though I think from an "originalist" perspective, he's not completely wrong here. There's a pretty good historical basis for saying that the framers intended for individuals to be able to keep firearms in their homes. Of course, the whole idea of "originalism" is a joke, for a host of reasons that deserve their own thread, not the least of which is Jefferson's battle to include a clause in the constitution that would've required a new ratification every 20 years. The original intent of the framers, I'm quite certain, precluded "originalism." But I'm way off topic here.

Still, the ruling seems narrow in the sense that if you don't live in Chicago or D.C., there's unlikely to be any difference at all.

After writing the Constitution did the founders go home, collect all their guns, and burn them up in a big bonfire? No, they just went home with the knowledge that the government was not allowed to confiscate their guns.

The Supreme Court can and will draw lines in the sand in some unusal ways so in that sense you are probably correct. In a literal sense I don't see how a handgun provides much self-defense against the powerful weapons of the federal government and that is why I used the silly, mocking example of a tank as that would provide real self-defense.

that in thinking a bit more, it is amusing to see an "originalist" like Scalia talk about self defense, I don't remember seeing the version of the 2nd amendment that includes the words "self defense." Nor to I remember reading about gang violence in 1790s Virginia. This, not a week after crying like a baby about American citizens being killed in the recent Habeas decision. Oh how I detest that man.

To answer your original question, a rewrite would be appropriate. But we get so stupid about this thing, IMO, because the argument has been framed by its extremes. Its the mentally ill carrying M16s vs. an end to legal hunting and men in black helicopters confiscating Civil War rifle collections. Maybe in another generation we'll be ready to settle it like adults. But I doubt it.

. . we just have to win this election and hope that one of the conservatives retires on Obama's watch.

The decision did its best to be cautious. My instinct is that the majority wanted to affirm the right of individuals to own some sort of firearms, but they also wanted to allow the states to regulate that right as tightly as possible. I think it's telling that the decision was written by Scalia. The only judge on the Court who might have wanted to radically expand the Second Amendment was him.

The decision is basically symbolic, as it was intended to be, and its practical effects will hopefully be negligible.

Indeed this is likely to be the case since all the ruling does is let the DC residents legally own the hand guns they currently illegally possess.