Breaking: Ninth Circuit incorporates Second Amendment into 14th Amendment Rights (Nordyke v King)…
Update: .pdf of ruling here
Go read it all at AceHQ complete with flaming skull:
From the decision:
We therefore conclude that the right to keep and bear arms is “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.” Colonial revolutionaries, the Founders, and a host of commentators and lawmakers living during the first one hundred years of the Republic all insisted on the fundamental nature of the right. It has long been regarded as the “true palladium of liberty.” Colonists relied on it to assert and to win their independence, and the victorious Union sought to prevent a recalcitrant South from abridging it less than a century later. The crucial role this deeply rooted right has played in our birth and history compels us to recognize that it is indeed fundamental, that it is necessary to the Anglo-American concept of ordered liberty that we have inherited.
The actual ruling upholds some state limits on this right, but makes CLEAR that the limits put in place are themselves limited and must meet a standard, Ace explains:
Now, as big a victory as this is, note that the gun ordinance being challenged was in fact upheld. I suppose this will be the style of analysis then: Yes, you superficially have 2nd Amendment right, but we are going to read that as being an extremely limited one.
Even so, if that is the game, this is important. Even if it’s being interpreted to provide as little actual rights as possible, it still imposes some restrictions on state and local government, and still grants some genuine rights to citizens.
More on the ruling from Eugene Volokh via Instapundit and Ace
…This sort of “fundamentalness” reasoning in naturally mushy — as it has been throughout the Court’s selective incorporation cases — but here’s roughly how the panel goes through it: (1) It points to evidence that the right was seen as very important by the Framers, and concludes, “This brief survey of our history reveals a right indeed ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.’ Moreover, whereas the Supreme Court has previously incorporated rights the colonists fought for, we have here both a right they fought for and the right that allowed them to fight.”
(2) It points to continued support for the right from the Framing on, noting among other things that 44 state constitutions contain a right-to-bear-arms provision.
(3) It particularly points to the support of the right, including its self-defense component, around the time the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified….
Moderate in the Middle 