Gun Ruling a Sea Change for 2nd Amendment

The Supreme Court’s decision today striking down Washington's handgun ban represented a change in interpreting the Second Amendment. The court’s 5-4 vote split down partisan lines, the Post reports, with Justices Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito in opposition to Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer. "The enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table," Scalia wrote.

The ruling is not absolute; Scalia’s opinion makes clear that some regulation of firearms is permissible and necessary. "One should not expect it to clarify the entire field," the opinion continues. Dissenter Stevens, in arguing that the Court broke the precedent that the amendment applied only to military arms, countered: "This court should stay out of that political thicket." (More gun control stories.)