The Supreme Court heard a case on Tuesday about the 2nd Amendment involving a handgun ban in Washington DC. We'll have to wait for an opinion but the case is the first significant case about the 2nd Amendment in decades.
"Court Weighs Right to Guns, and Its Limits" is a rundown of a lot of articles about the oral arguments.
They basically come down to this. Thomas, Scalia, Roberts, Alito and Kennedy all seem to support an individuals right to own guns (as opposed to doing so just in a militia capacity, the first clause of the Amendment) so the ban will be overturned. The question is on what basis the court will use. Is it reasonable to have an regulation? All parties seemed to indicate that it's legal for a state to ban machine gun ownership and for Congress to ban interstate-commerce involving them. Then it comes down to what's a reasonable regulation. It seems DC's outright ban of handguns will be found unreasonable. One justice asked about a state that wanted to ban handguns from school dormitories, would that be reasonable. We'll have to wait to find out.
Here's a Layman's Guide to Heller
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