Op-Ed: Heller Case Goes Better Than Expected

By Alan Korwin

The bottom line is, I think we’re going to be OK.

When Justice Kennedy flat out said he believes in an individual right under the Second Amendment, there were no gasps in the hush of the High Court, but you could tell the greatest stellar array of gun-rights experts ever assembled, all there in that one room, breathed a sigh of relief — we had five votes to affirm the human and civil right to arms.

The transcript will be a key for analysis going forward until June, when the decision is expected, and I’m working without the benefit of that at the moment. Digesting the fleeting and immensely complex speech that took place for one hour and thirty-eight minutes a few hours ago, it’s hard to see how any line of thought could be strung together to support the idea that the D.C. total ban on operable firearms at home can be seen as reasonable regulation, even though Mr. Dellinger, the city’s attorney, tried to suggest it was. He was shot down on this repeatedly, found no quarter from any of the Justices, though several found room to move on what amounts to reasonable restrictions.

And it is easy to see, from the non-stop rapid-fire comments and questions of eight of the Justices (Thomas asked nothing, extending his legendary running silence), how even the most permissive standard of review imaginable for gun-ban laws, could tolerate the District’s level of intolerance toward some sort of right to keep and bear arms.

That would give the pro-rights side what it so sorely wants – an admission that the Second Amendment protects something for “the people,” and the rest of that pie can be baked later.

Dellinger tried to suggest that rifles, shotguns and handguns had different usefulness, actually implying rifles are better for self defense in an urban home, because handguns were so inherently bad or dangerous that cities had a legitimate interest in banning them, but the Court wasn’t buying it, and noting that D.C.’s ban banned everything.

Click here for the entire first-hand account of the goings-on at Tuesday's District of Columbia v. Heller Supreme Court hearing.