Score One for Common-Sense Gun Regulations

Dick Heller just won't go away.

In the summer of 2008, Heller became the hero of Second Amendment advocates when the Supreme Court used D.C. v. Heller as a vehicle to create an individual right to handgun possession.

It was the first time ever in our Constitution's history that the Court used the Second Amendment to invalidate a law. But in unprecedented fashion, the conservatives reached across the supposed separation of branches into the land-of-the-legislature invalidating a democratically enacted law. Powered by Justice Antonin Scalia's brash pen, the Court's five-justice majority united to out-vote the four left-leaning justices.

The fact that the conservative justices effectively eviscerated the first 13 words of the 27-word Second Amendment, which limit the right to bear arms to "[a] well regulated militia," seemed not to bother conservatives, who are often so eager to shout out Judicial Activism! at even the scent of liberals "creating" rights. Nay, say the conservatives. It's only judicial activism when you do it!

But I digress.

Today, edging into the previously uncharted legal waters of individual gun rights, a federal judge upheld three of D.C.'s new gun regulations over Dick Heller's latest challenge. Granted: the gun regulations Heller challenged this time were about as uncontroversial as can be. Heller sought to strike down D.C.'s requirement that guns are registered, a ban on assault weapons and a prohibition on large-capacity bullet-feeding devices. That doesn't mean, though, that we shouldn't celebrate.

D.C.'s City Council had passed these regulations after the Supreme Court announced its ground-breaking opinion in D.C. v. Heller, in an attempt to protect the residents of our nation's capital from the scourge of gun violence (while still trying to comply with Heller). Today, a federal judge respected that legitimate government interest -- and in doing so, wisely refused to endanger the people of D.C.

Photo Credit: Al_HikesAZ