Life, Liberty and Property

Today, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of an individual right to own guns. The decision overturns two essential components of the DC gun ban: the complete prohibition on handgun ownership, an the requirement that all guns possessed in DC (by individuals, rather than business) be stored in a completely unusable fashion.

The court did not go so far as to extend the Second Amendment to the states, however, as that was not in question. A footnote in the decision suggested that the second amendment right did not necessarily apply to the states, leaving gun bans that might exist beyond Federal jurisdiction intact.

Update: Tom Goldstein seems to think that the SCOTUS would incorporate the Second Amendment against the states.

Update 2: I am going to have to disagree with Mr. Goldstein after reading the footnote referenced above. Quoted here:

With respect to Cruikshank’s continuing validity on incorporation, a question not presented by this case, we note that Cruikshank also said that the First Amendment did not apply against the States and did not engage in the sort of Fourteenth Amendment inquiry required by our later cases. Our later decisions in Presser v. Illinois, 116 U. S. 252, 265 (1886) and Miller v. Texas, 153 U. S. 535, 538 (1894), reaffirmed that the Second Amendment applies only to the Federal Government. (Emphasis Added)

While this footnote is not binding precedent, as it is merely an extention of the dicta, it would seem to suggest that at least Justice Scalia believes that the Second Amendment does not apply to the states.