Now I can go hunting at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum! I call dibs on the woolly mammoth!

Republicans like to talk about local laws, states rights, local government, but when a local government makes a law they don't like they get their appointees to "legislate from the bench". Disgusting.

First Exxon and now this...where is the right wing outrage about judges legislating from the bench now?

No, seriously this is a good thing.

Yaay for civil liberties.

Haven't handguns long been banned in NYC? Why didn't that go to the Supreme Court?

Handguns are not banned in NYC.

There's a mandatory 1 year (or more, now, I forget) imprisonment for possession of an ILLEGAL handgun, but that law's rarely if ever enforced anyway.

I don't trust the police to protect my health and safety, and that 2nd Amendment thing is really not easy to misinterpret.

There's no strong evidence that a handgun ban actually accomplishes anything useful.

Considering some of the District's arguments, including that the 2nd Amendment didn't apply to DC, since the District was not a state (which would mean the rest of the Bill of Rights would not apply to DC residents), I think this was a good result for personal liberty.

The first pol whose pander to give all citizens an automatic weapon wins. Neighborhoods have a new way to settle disputes. Running over Fluffy is now a capital crime.

Prove to me that a bunch of fat ignorant animals is a militia and I'll believe this decision.

There are no 'militia's' since the military takes over that role. The militia were needed to fight the British because the military, what ever there might have been, was overwhelmed.

The second ammendment is a quant throwback to the founding of this nation, it's not meant to insure that people can get Mac-10's and blast the neighborhood...

This country is getting nuttier and nuttier...

Mandatory trigger locks are unconstitutional? Sweet God. How is that at all related to a well-regulated militia? Looks like the famous Onion headline "8-Year-Old Accidentally Exercises Second Amendment Rights" will become a lot more real and frequent.

I'd like to know what the vote was in this case. Was this another 5 to 4 decision?

...and cognitive-dissonance-inducing if terrorists stage an attack using firearms (as at Luxor back in the mid-1990s).

Certainly most Republicans would call me a liberal, if not a flaming radical fit to be locked up, but when I read about the "liberal" fixation on outlawing guns, I am puzzled. Get a clue: Blackwater is growing. FEMA is building prisons. Posse Comitatus is gone. COG was instituted on 9/11 and never revoked. Any minute an executive order under the flimsiest false-flag pretense can put shock troops with automatic weapons in your neighborhood to deprive you of civil liberties, lock up dissenters and take your children for wars of empire. And "liberals" want to make sure that the fascists are the only ones with weapons. Call me a right winger, but I agree with Chairman Mao: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

So, under Supreme Court interpretation,

1 armed individual will be considered to be 'a well regulated (State) militia.'

The regulation consisting merely of the Court's opinion.

And, using the Exxon Valdez judgment tithe, the Court has wised itself a time saving measure to re-legislate the precedent applications of punitive damages.

Our new, streamlined, government has now devised agile self-improvements enabling the Judicial and Executive branches to legislate and enforce what Congress need no longer concern itself with, being too busy printing and awarding money and contracts to have time insistent upon overseeing the free-handed exercise of Judicial and Executive lawmaking.

As the Court may now ignore or create law, and the Executive make it up instantly and, where useful, retroactively, we have finally advanced beyond the irritating stalemate of divisive partisanship so often deadlocking the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Thank you, Mr President. I see my time has expired...

As I understand it, the ban in this case is unconstitutional because the District of Columbia exists under federal jurisdiction. The Constitution prevents the federal government from infringing on your right to bear arms. A state or municipality can regulate arms however it sees fit, but the power of the federal government to do so is limited by the Second Amendment.

Its the American F'ing way baby. So sad doesn't make hat much difference either way. The gun culture is too pervasive.

Why do so many people treat civil rights as a gift basket that they pick and choose from - and that they can force that choice on others.

Most progressives love the 1st amendment and hate the 2nd.

Most conservatives love the 2nd but hate the 1st.

Then there's the bipartisan fight currently raging over the 4th.

Women's rights groups love a "right to privacy" that was actually created by the supreme court. (We should push for an actual amendment guaranteeing privacy).

It sure would be nice if more people valued every single civil right shared by us all.

As usual, Scalia's "strict constructionism" goes out the window when he feels like legislating from the bench. Or perhaps he can explain where the raw text of the Second Amendment -- the only thing he supposedly takes into consideration -- mentions anything about self-defense, trigger locks, or restricting the allowed arms based on barrel length or typical use.

I actually support this decision, being one of those wacky "living document" lefties. I just think Scalia is being a huge hypocrite. But then, that's nothing new for him.

The way I read this clause, it has two parts. The first is that a 'well regulated militia' is necessary. The second is that, because this militia is necessary, people need the right to keep and bear arms. In other words, it does not limit the right to bear arms only when you are in the 'shape' of a militia. The people who form the militia have the arms prior to that formation.

And it makes sense, otherwise a tyrannical government could just secure the guns sitting in the headquarters of the militia. It is essential that guns be distributed throughout the population so they CANNOT be seized easily.