SECOND AMENDMENT

SECOND AMENDMENT
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

According to US Today.... the appeals court decision defying precedent on gun rights has reached the steps of the Supreme Court, carrying with it the potential for a seismic shift in laws across the nation.

Since 1939, the nation's judges had generally regarded the Second Amendment right "to keep and bear arms" as belonging to state militias, such as National Guard units, not to individual gun owners. But on March 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit interpreted the Second Amendment differently. The panel concluded that it protects an individual's right to firearms and struck down a Washington, D.C., ban on handguns.
Now the justices are poised to announce today whether they will take up the case. The court's last major ruling on gun rights came in 1939 in United States v. Miller, when the justices said the Second Amendment covers a collective right of militias.

This is the most significant Second Amendment case to come before the court, maybe ever, but especially since the Miller case," says Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "There are a lot of cities, a lot of states, looking at this. It could affect gun laws across the country. It could end up playing a role in the 2008 elections."

"Every American who owns a firearm would cheer the court taking this," he adds. "I don't see how the justices could come to any other decision than that it is an individual right."
A Gallup Poll last month found that 42% of those surveyed had a gun in their home. Asked whether there should be a ban on the possession of handguns, 30% said yes, 68% said no, and 2% had no opinion.