DC Circuit declares Second Amendment an "individual right"

Here’s some really wonderful language in the opinion.

Even if “keep” and “bear” are not read as a unitary term, we are told, the meaning of “keep” cannot be broader than “bear” because the Second Amendment only protects the use of arms in the course of militia service. Id. at 26-27. But this proposition assumes its conclusion, and we do not take it seriously.

The argument that “keep” as used in “the right of the people to keep . . . Arms” shares a military meaning with “keep up” as used in “every state shall keep up a well regulated militia” mocks usage, syntax, and common sense. Such outlandish views are likely advanced because the plain meaning of “keep” strikes a mortal blow to the collective right theory.

I loved this passage:

The Amendment does not protect “the right of militiamen to keep and bear arms,” but rather “the right of the people.” The operative clause, properly read, protects the ownership and use of weaponry beyond that needed to preserve the state militias. Again, we point out that if
the competent drafters of the Second Amendment had meant the right to be limited to the protection of state militias, it is hard to imagine that they would have chosen the language they did. We therefore take it as an expression of the drafters’ view that the people possessed a natural right to keep and bear arms, and that the preservation of the militia was the right’s most salient political benefit—and thus the most appropriate to express in a political document.

Then there’s this from the Brady Campaign:

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a Washington advocacy group, said in a statement the decision ``is judicial activism at its worst.’’

``Two federal judges have negated the democratically expressed will of the people of the District of Columbia,’’ Helmke said.

That’s just a flatly ridiculous comment to make in light of the pages and pages and pages the Court dedicated to a discussion of the Constitutional language and history. Hey, Paul, ever heard of that "supreme law of the land" thing?