The Second Amendment at the 9th Circuit
Last April, in the case of Nordyke v. King, a 3-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled that the Second Amendment protects the individual right to keep and bear arms against infringement by state and local governments. The case dealt with a 1999 Alameda County, California ordinance banning the possession of firearms on county-owned property, a law enacted primarily to keep gun shows away from the county fairgrounds. Today, an 11-judge panel from the 9th Circuit will rehear arguments in the case. Here's what the 9th Circuit wrote in April and should reaffirm now:
We therefore conclude that the right to keep and bear arms is "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition." Colonial revolutionaries, the Founders, and a host of commentators and lawmakers living during the first one hundred years of the Republic all insisted on the fundamental nature of the right. It has long been regarded as the "true palladium of liberty." Colonists relied on it to assert and to win their independence, and the victorious Union sought to prevent a recalcitrant South from abridging it less than a century later. The crucial role this deeply rooted right has played in our birth and history compels us to recognize that it is indeed fundamental, that it is necessary to the Anglo-American conception of ordered liberty that we have inherited. We are therefore persuaded that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment and applies it against the states and local governments.
For more on why the states should respect the Second Amendment see here and here.
