New at Reason: Brian Doherty on Life After Heller

May 5, 2009

Late April saw the most important new development in the expansion of gun rights since last year’s landmark decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, which saw the Supreme Court declaring authoritatively for the first time that the Second Amendment did indeed protect an individual right to bear arms. In a peculiar but not unprecedented turn of events, the latest groundbreaking pro-gun rights declaration was embedded in a case from the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Nordyke v. King, in which the plaintiff who was suing to overturn a gun control restriction actually lost. But as Senior Editor Brian Doherty writes, the Ninth Circuit also affirmed that the Second Amendment controls state and local actions as well as federal ones. That was a step farther than even Heller had gone.

Read all about it here.