RUSH: ( story | PDF ) “A divided three-judge DC circuit panel has held that the District of Columbia’s gun control laws violate individuals’ Second Amendment rights. According to the majority opinion, ‘the phrase the right of the people when read intratextually and in light of Supreme Court precedent leads us to conclude that the right in question is individual.” The majority opinion sums up its holding on this point as follows. To summarize: ‘We conclude that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. That right existed prior to the formation of the new government under the Constitution. It was premised on the private use of arms for activities such as hunting and self-defense, the latter being understood as resistance to either private lawlessness or the depredations of a tyrannical government or a threat from abroad.
‘In addition, the right to keep and bear arms had the important and salutary civic purpose of helping to preserve the citizen militia. The civic purpose was also a political expedient for the Federalists in the first Congress as it served in part to placate their anti-Federalist opponents. Despite the importance of the Second Amendment’s civic purpose, however, the activities it protects are not limited to militia service nor is an individual’s enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or her continued or intermittent enrollment in the militia.’ Now, this is
The DC Circuit Court of Appeals, not to be confused with the Ninth Circus Court of Appeals, has just held that DC’s gun control laws violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals. This case, obviously they’re going to try to get it to the Supreme Court. Nothing at the Supreme Court says they have to take it. They don’t have to take any case they don’t want to. But this is so ground breaking. This is so profound that the Supreme Court might consider this a pretty rosy candidate. Here’s the next thing. What will happen next is that people will go and they’ll ask for the whole 12th Circuit, called