Have You Bought Your Guns, Yet?

I don't have a whole lot to say about the Supreme Court's big decision in Heller yesterday, in which the Court struck down DC's handgun ban by adopting an individual rights view of the Second Amendment. But I did want to clear up a couple of misconceptions that seem to be floating through the press.

First, this decision only impacts the federal government's power to regulate guns. DC is a federal enclave, not a state, and thus operates under the auspices of Congress. The protections of the Bill of Rights - including the Second Amendment - only apply, by their terms, to Congress and the federal government. Most of those rights have been "incorporated" and applied to the states via the Fourteenth Amendment, although a couple haven't been (the right to be charged by indictment being one). The incorporation issue wasn't on the table in Heller and until the Supremes settle that, nothing has really changed in the states.

Second, although Scalia in his opinion tries to protect things like felon in possession laws from the scope of Heller, it's not really that easy. For one thing, that simply wasn't the issue in Heller and anything the Court said about it is non-binding (tho' persuasive) dicta. For another, the Court declined to decide what standard of review to apply to Second Amendment claims in the future. A high standard of review could make broad bans on gun possession to groups like felons difficult to uphold.