Dc v Heller

The calculus changed for the Second Amendment in 2008, when the Supreme Court, for the first time in history, ruled that the amendment protected an individual right of civilians to own handguns.

Last year at this time, I said that America was turning a corner on the gun issue, and the watershed events of 2008 confirmed that prediction. The pa...

In June, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling on the Second Amendment right to bear arms, D.C. v. Heller. So far, the victory hasn't turned out exactly as the gun rights folks had hoped.

The Second Amendment has always put me in a quandary, but Scalia's opinion was not an honest attempt at sorting it out. It was a sophistical, political decision of just the type that he rails against.

So much for Scalia's much-vaunted "originalism," which advocates reading the Constitution as it would have been understood at the time of the Founding.

A government that cannot protect people should not deprive them of the right to protect themselves -- and the the D.C. gun ban did just that.

While the gun lobby may crack open that bottle of champagne, this is a victory that thrives in theory, but one that, in practice, can only be condemned.

Today's Heller decision marks the biggest triumph so far for gun rights advocates. It establishes what was for so long denied, and the the gun control debate will never be the same.

If Scalia and Stevens were competent historians, then it might be worth reading what they write. But they are not. Both offer selective readings of history to support what seem to be pre-determined positions.