2nd Amendment Incorporated to States/Municipalities
So, not sure if this is really news or not, but it looks like the Supreme Court has made some pretty important precedent today, ruling that the rights secured by the Second Amendment extend to states and muncipalities. By-the-numbers conservative v. liberal vote, no surprises there. I'm not too up on my 2nd Amendment law, but my impression was that it only applied to the federal government before this decision. Now they've struck down some laws, while implying that less stringent ones may pass musters.
I'm not a huge fan of the 2nd Amendment. I've always wondered how people thought the gov't would take away all our freedoms and leave the right to bear arms intact - and if they wouldn't, then the entire reason for the amendment goes poof anyway. That said, by its language, it is the most obviously applicable to lower government, lacking as it does any mention of Congress, so application to states seems pretty obvious to me. I wonder what implications this will have for D.C., though.
I may edit this later with my impressions of the actual text, rather than the news article. For now I wanted to see what your thoughts were. Good, bad, indifferent? Legally sound? What are the implications of this, longer-term?
ETA: I know that the ACLU generally doesn't take up 2nd Amendment cases, on the grounds that it's a settled issue WRT states and municipalities. Anyone see them taking this up? I know they're pretty much champions of the unpopular causes (Nazis, anti-religious extremists, offensive free speech, etc.) but I wonder how far they'd be willing to stretch from their generally liberal values.
I'm not a huge fan of the 2nd Amendment. I've always wondered how people thought the gov't would take away all our freedoms and leave the right to bear arms intact - and if they wouldn't, then the entire reason for the amendment goes poof anyway. That said, by its language, it is the most obviously applicable to lower government, lacking as it does any mention of Congress, so application to states seems pretty obvious to me. I wonder what implications this will have for D.C., though.
I may edit this later with my impressions of the actual text, rather than the news article. For now I wanted to see what your thoughts were. Good, bad, indifferent? Legally sound? What are the implications of this, longer-term?
ETA: I know that the ACLU generally doesn't take up 2nd Amendment cases, on the grounds that it's a settled issue WRT states and municipalities. Anyone see them taking this up? I know they're pretty much champions of the unpopular causes (Nazis, anti-religious extremists, offensive free speech, etc.) but I wonder how far they'd be willing to stretch from their generally liberal values.