Other Crap

"The Supreme Court just struck down one of the nation's strictest gun-control laws"

Irrespective of their personal feelings on gun control, the justices have to rule on the constitutionality of the law, and the second amendment says "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

The court's specific constitutional interpretation is that a law-abiding citizen, as part of the the citizen's militia, is entitled to keep in his home those arms in common use to defend house, family, and property. The ruling was narrow enough to specify only that DC had to issue permits to law-abiding citizens to keep guns in their own homes. It went on to elaborate that the ruling could NOT be construed as a rebuke of all gun control laws, to wit: "Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. 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."

In other words, local laws may still prohibit certain types of weapons; they may prohibit certain people from owning weapons; they may require that the weapons not be concealed; and they may forbid weapons to be carried in certain localities. They may not, however, prevent a law-abiding and mentally stable man from owning a gun and keeping it in his own home. "Assuming he is not disqualified from exercising Second Amendment rights, the District must permit Heller to register his handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in the home."