DC Circuit Panel Holds Right To Bear Arms Applies To Individuals

This is a fairly big case. Here is a link to a sumarizing article, and here is a link to the opinion itself (which is long and which I haven't read in its entirety yet).

The summary article quotes a good passage from the opinion, so I won't excerpt. But there are two competing theories about the second amendment. One theory holds that the second amendment only protects the state governments' rights to provide state militias, and that individuals themselves do not have a right under the second amendment to bear arms. In other words, the second amendment only means that the federal government can't pass laws preventing states from forming militias and arming those militias, but the federal government (or state governments) can outlaw private ownership of guns.

The second theory holds that the second amendment does in fact protect an individual's right to possess guns.

Today's opinion from the DC Circuit panel went with the "individual rights" theory. There was one dissenting judge. The case will probably be appealed and heard by a larger group of DC Circuit judges ("en banc"). After that, it could go to the Supreme Court.

I personally agree with the majority. The second amendment should protect individual rights to bear arms. That is not to say that reasonable controls over weapons can't be enforced. But the idea that the federal government, or a state government, could outlaw all gun possession rankles.