The Supreme Court this morning handed down the most important decision of the term — a decision affirming the Second Amendment right of an individual to have a gun in one's home. See here.
There'll be a lot of commentary and analysis about this over the next few days. I hope you'll keep up with it on the news and through whatever sources of opinion you like. I'll be trying to digest some of it for you here.
For now, however, what's important about this decision is that it has been made at all. The Second Amendment contains easily the most ambiguously worded provision in the entire Bill of Rights: "[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." Most historians and judicial scholars who have read the congressional debates about this amendment agree that Congress meant to secure the right of local militias to bear arms. (As you recall, these militias were composed of local, private citizens who organized against Britain and later were occasionally called into action during local emergencies.)
The Court has long read the amendment as guaranteeing this right of citizens only in their capacity as soldiers in their state militias. But many resourceful interest groups, such as the National Rifle Association, have vigorously advanced the belief that the amendment guarantees a personal right to own a gun. Amazingly enough, this opinion has never really been tested in actual Supreme Court decisions. Until now.
Last December, Cass Sunstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago (who just recently moved from there to Harvard) wrote an opinion piece for the Boston Globe about the case pending before the Court which resulted in today's decision. It's worth reading in its entirety. But note his prediction in the last two paragraphs:
This spring, the Supreme Court will
probably issue its first major ruling on the Second Amendment. Here's a
prediction: Dominated as it is by Republican appointees, the court will
adopt the individual-rights interpretation. It will accept a
controversial reading of the amendment's original meaning. It will run
roughshod over long-settled understandings among the federal courts.
At
the same time, the court will recognize that reasonable restrictions
are permissible — and thus will energize, rather than end, the national
discussion about the regulation of guns.
Yes, in the same way that the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade energized, rather than ended, the national discussion about abortion.