Unless Chief Justice Roberts is pulling our leg, today will be the day. Stay tuned for details. Don’t bite your nails down too far.
UPDATE: The Court will begin releasing opinions at 10. In the mean time, Scotusblog has some interesting polls on their live blog coverage here.
UPDATE: This will be a momentous day for gun owners, no matter what the decision. From here on out, things will be different. This is the biggest day for those who care about the second amendment, probably ever.
UPDATE: The Court releases cases apparently according to seniority, so we’ll be dead last is Scalia is indeed the writer the Heller opinion.
UPDATE: I’m as giddy as a school girl.
UPDATE: Squirming in my seat here.
UPDATE: The case of Heller v. District of Columbia is AFFIRMED!
UPDATE: Scalia wrote the majority opinion. Ginsburg, Stevens, Souter and Breyer dissented. This case fell along ideological grounds, with the liberals dissenting.
UPDATE: Apparently there are two dissenting opinions. This is a 5-4 ruling. Closer than I would have liked, but a win, nontheless.
UPDATE: I will get the opinion, and read it, and give you my take as soon as I have time.
Fingernails? Hell, I’m already down to the proximal phalanges…
I assume by 9:53, I’ll have a metacarpal or two down to a nub.
Maybe that was Paul Helmke’s plan from the start. He knew that us pro-gunners would get so anxious waiting for the supreme court to rule that we would chew our trigger fingers off in anticipation…
Personally, I’m hoping for much public weeping and gnashing of teeth from the Brady Bunch and their affiliated groups. But you know they’ll try to put some positive spin on it – “Well, we lost big time, but that just means it can only get better from here!”
…Orygunner…
I hope. Unfortunately I watch the SCOTUS flub Kelo, it’s very possible they punt this one low and to the left as well.
30 more minutes and we’ll know for sure.
I love SCOTUSBlogs liveblog plugin – no need to wear out my F5 key
10:12 Tom Goldstein – Heller affirmed.
10:13 Ben Winograd –
The Court has released the opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller (07-290), on whether the District’s firearms regulations – which bar the possession of handguns and require shotguns and rifles to be kept disassembled or under trigger lock – violate the Second Amendment. The ruling below, which struck down the provisions in question, is affirmed.
Justice Scalia wrote the opinion. Justice Breyer dissented, joined by Justices Stevens, Souter and Ginsburg. We will provide a link to the decision as soon as it is available.
10:13 Tom Goldstein – Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm.
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5/4 is a better break IMHO, it means some of the squishy middle didn’t like the decision
YES! YES! YES!
“oops” as everyone in my office turns to look at me funny…
I’m verklempt.
Close is good–might mean that Scalia wrote a strong defense of what the amendment actually says.
http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/court-a-constitutional-right-to-a-gun/ “Justice Antonin Scalia’s opinion for the majority stressed that the Court was not casting doubt on long-standing bans on gun possession by felons or the mentally retarded, or laws barring guns from schools or government buildings, or laws putting conditions on gun sales.”
Bother
http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/07-290.pdf for the decision itself
Bugger
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.
Woo HOoo!!!
10:24
Tom Goldstein – Quoting the syllabus: The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditional lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.
ive got the majority opinion linked at my page