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Originally Posted by Kunikos
So what does this decision really mean? I sure as hell don't want rent-a-cops all packing a nine. Those assholes are a bunch of wannabe vigilantes with no training or oversight, and I can just see random people getting shot for no good reason other than "obstructing the Orange Julius stand" in the mall.
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The crux of the decision is that gun ownership in indeed a personal right guaranteed by the Constitution and therefore not open to complete bannination by a state or city ordinance. But they also ruled that laws to enforce the lawful use of guns are legal.
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Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in the landmark 5-to-4 decision, said the Constitution does not allow “the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home.” In so declaring, the majority found that a gun-control law in the nation’s capital went too far in making it nearly impossible to own a handgun.
But the court held that the individual right to possess a gun “for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home” is not unlimited. “It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose,” Justice Scalia wrote.
The ruling does not mean, for instance, that laws against carrying concealed weapons are to be swept aside. Furthermore, Justice Scalia wrote, “The court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/wa...738&ei=5087%0A
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So think of it this way: you are guaranteed the option of owning a gun as long as you meet the ordinances that may be set up to ensure that your use of that gun is lawful. So the D.C. gun ban that prohibited all hand gun ownership is unconstitutional, but limiting ownership of guns by felons, or gun registration and sales laws are legal as they don't prevent citizens from owning a gun without reason.
At least, that's my take