The Supreme Court and Gun Rights

This has kind of flown under the radar (with the exception of a few) but if the Supreme Court agrees to hear it, it would be a nuclear explosion in the blogosphere:

The justices are facing a decision about whether to hear an appeal from city officials in Washington, D.C., wanting to keep the capital's 31-year ban on handguns. A lower court struck down the ban as a violation of the Second Amendment rights of gun ownership.

The prospect that the high court might define gun rights under the Constitution is making people on both sides of the issue nervous.

"I wouldn't be confident on either side," said Mark Tushnet, a Harvard Law School professor and author of a new book on the battle over guns in the United States.

The court could announce as early as Tuesday whether it will hear the case.

To this point, this is the biggest case the Roberts court may hear or not hear depending on the decision. I'm hoping that they do agree to hear it and decide that it is unconstitutional in keeping with the intent of the Founding Fathers.

I'm not a lawyer and won't even pretend to play one on this blog but it seems as if this could have far-reaching effects on the federalism/states argument and groups such as the NRA. Regulations such as the Brady Bill would be affected I would assume.

I'm waiting for some of the bloggers with more knowledge on the issue than I to weigh in but this would be Second Amendment showdown and give us an idea of just how the Roberts court will handle sticky issues such as abortion and capital punishment in the future.



Other thoughts on this issue include:



Fat Jack

Nate

Betsy (who looks at the political ramifications for the candidates)

The Warrior Lawyer

Cao



Settle in folks, this one could definitely get interesting.

Update: Glenn Reynolds hasn't discussed it at Instapundit, he's waiting for the court to decide but e-mails (and posts) to say he discussed it here.