[Sonart]

.

Quote by: Tivodan Huh? What kind of logic is this? Very few crimes are committed with lawfully owned guns, so how does a legal or illegal status affect that?

Because all illegal guns begin as legal guns, Tivo. In a country where guns are so incredibly prolific, anyone can get them if they want them, legally or otherwise. And this difinitely includes legal gun manufacturers who profiteer by selling guns in mass, directly or indirectly, to criminals, and why we should be able to sue them for it.

How many gun crimes were committed because guns were so available? And how many non-criminals became criminals because guns were so available?

Quote by: Tivodan Furthermore, the right was not intended for protection against crime, it was intended primarily from protection against tyrannical government.

Oh stop it, please! This is a romantic notion that existed in the minds of the Founders still giddy with the success of their own revolution by citizen soldiers, and their desire that the country should continue to be defended by citizen soldiers. The civil war put that silly notion to rest, and today, against the most powerful military the world has even known, the notion of armed citizens overthrowing the American government is a ridiculous libertarian wet dream.

The only reason you'all keep clinging to that silly notion is that it sounds far more respectable than "we don't care how violent our nation has become, we like having our guns and we wanna keep 'em!"

Quote by: HelioPrime I'm guessing this only sets a precedent now? So the gun ban opponents still will have to take the issue to the court.

The precedent has been set and reset since the Miller decision in 1939, and affirmed and expanded upon by the majority of Federal Circuit Courts. The Heller v DC decision is the anomoly to those decisions, which is exactly why it ended up before the High Court and why so much is at stake. When the NRA and gun advocates go on about our "constitutional right to bear arms", they've been lying to us for the last 70 years. By the current law of the land, we have no such individual right.

And Tivo is right... absolutely nothing has been decided, although given the conservative nature of the Bush Court I fully expect Miller to be over-turned.

Having said that, what stood out in the article for me was the Court's seemingly desperate desire to find some way of making a decision that changes nothing, except the DC ban, and pretty much maintains the current status quo... meaning a decision that allows Congress and states to pass gun control laws - short of banning them altogether - while still allowing people to say they have an individual right to keep and bear arms.

.