Litigation

Gun Rights Expansion Triggers Debate

By Peter Hardin

The Supreme Court’s ruling this week expanding gun rights (see Gavel Grab) has sparked sharply divided editorial opinion and forecasts of a flood of lawsuits to challenge gun-control rules in numerous states and cities.

Given this likely wave of litigation, “it could take years before the practical impact of the ruling is clear,” a Wall Street Journal article suggested. The article gives this summary of the Supreme Court ruling:

“The ruling requires states to respect a federal right under the Second Amendment to keep and bear arms, but it doesn’t say specifically how broadly the right extends. That means existing regulations must be weighed by federal judges who will have to interpret the Supreme Court’s vague language.”

In an editorial, the New York Times criticized the Supreme Court decision, saying it followed an opinion two years ago that “disregarded the plain words of the Second Amendment” and overturned a District of Columbia handgun ban. When the court similarly ruled Monday in a case involving a Chicago law, it listened to “infuriatingly abstract” arguments, then promised “results that will be all too real and bloody,” the editorial asserted.

A Washington Post editorial disagreed in part and agreed in part. This week’s decision “in McDonald v. City of Chicago is both correct and potentially troubling,” the editorial said. It identified the worrisome part as “the threat that courts will step in to overturn reasonable legislative judgments that public safety requires certain restrictions on gun ownership.”

In a commentary entitled “Guns ‘N Robes,” the Economist magazine found this week’s decision to be a “re-run” of the ruling two years ago. It looked beyond the latest ruling’s substance to the limits it reflects on President Obama’s power:

“He controls the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate, but until he is able to alter the balance of the court, there is only so far he can change America,” the magazine said. If his nominee, Elena Kagan, is confirmed, the composition of the court would not change much.

The magazine concluded, “Unless he wins his second term Mr. Obama might well leave the court pretty much where he found it, in contrast to George Bush.”

Full post as published by The Gavel on June 30, 2010 (boomark / email).