Oh, HELL YES!!

(Via the Drudge Report)

The Supreme Court held Monday that the Constitution’s Second Amendment restrains government’s ability to significantly limit “the right to keep and bear arms,” advancing a recent trend by the John Roberts-led bench to embrace gun rights.

By a narrow, 5-4 vote, the justices signaled, however, that less severe restrictions could survive legal challenges.

More after I have time to read and digest. You’ll probably see commentary from other folks on the blogroll earlier. I just wanted to get the basic happy dance material out there for you.

Edit, 1059: ViaEx-Pat Lawyer,the text of McDonald v. City of Chicago.

Edit, 1229: Bearing in mind that I am not a lawyer and that I do not play one on TV; neither have I just spent the night in a Holiday Inn Express, the short version is this. In the 5-4 decision, there were 2 main arguments presented by Chicago and Oak Park as to why they should be allowed to keep their bans in place. First was that the Fourteenth Amendment, if read in some incredibly contorted manner without attention to clear precedent, would protect the right of the municipalities to pass outright gun bans. The 5 looked that the argument presented, came up with the judicial equivalent of a “Nazzo fast, Guido”, expounded on the nature of why the argument was wrong and rejected it.

Second was that the municipalities wanted to stick their fingers in their ears , close their eyes tight and chant really fast “Heller never happened. Heller never happened.” over and over. The 5 were having none of that: “Municipal respondents’ remaining arguments are rejected because they are at war with Heller’s central holding. In effect, they ask the Court to hold the right to keep and bear arms as subject to a different body of rules for incorporation than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.”

There is a lot more; I’ve just read the syllabus. The pdf of the decision is 214 pages, so I’m going to leave it to others if they wish to totally dissect it. I’ll get it read in the next few days, but I can already tell that it going to be way beyond my ability to give you anything in depth on it. Heller was simple compared to this one.

I will say is that we always knew they had a lame-ass case, but I’m a bit shocked at how lame it really was. Moreover, I’m terribly disappointed in the intellectual dishonesty that I feel characterizes the 4’s support of the municipalities. Politics aside, I expect better from my public servants.

This case makes it incredibly obvious why Elena Kagen needs to be kept off the Supreme Court at all costs, and why bodily tossing the Big O, his sycophants and toadies out of power over the next 29 or so months is so incredibly important. As the 5 said in their decision, passage of the Fourteenth Amendment fundamentally changed the nature of the Federal system (making it worse IMHO). We don’t need to have people on the bench would will be perfectly happy to ignore it and anything else they find expedient in order to advance their agenda. If we are not a nation where the rule of just law is held sacred, then we will not be a nation long.

Onward to the next round of lawsuits. Bloomberg, I hope you are having biggest episode of PSH in history right about now. We’re coming for you, baby.