For those anxiously watching the evolution of the D.C. gun ban, today was a highly anticipated day. Sept. 5 marked the deadline the District of Columbia had to file an appeal to the Supreme Court asking it to overturn the D.C. Court of Appeals decision regarding its ban on handguns. The law also required owners of shotguns and rifles to have them unloaded and disassembled, or with a trigger lock.

The District's gun ban was one of the toughest in the nation. D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty said the law was necessary to prevent further gun crime, saying that legalizing handguns would bring in more guns to the city and directly increase gun crime.

This is big news for many pro-gun rights organizations, which have been chomping at the bit for any jurisprudence of the Second Amendment. The last SCOTUS case involving the Second Amendment came in 1939 with United States v. Miller. While discussing the Second Amendment, the case only involved a very narrow interpretation of the law and failed to answer the individual versus collective argument.

We can expect to hear from the Supreme Court by Nov., and it is expected they will take up the case. By summer, we should have a decision that will affect all 50 states. Of course, there are multiple ways this case could be interpreted while still defining the Second Amendment as an individual right (as historical precedent has shown it to be). One such interpretation could be that states and cities do not have a right to limit access to specific types of firearms for individuals, but do have a right to regulate how those firearms are stored--as D.C. did in addition to outright banning handguns.

Regardless of how the case eventually comes out, this is the best chance the Second Amendment has to be interpreted in the proper way, and for that decision to set precedent once and for all. The conservative nature of the court (the only good thing Bush has yet to do as President) seems to bias it towards the individual right.

You can read the Washington Post article on the ban here.

Clarification Edit: By "conservative," I mean the willingness to interpret the Constitution in a manner respective of the original intent of the Founding Fathers, or what one might call strict interpretation. On a side note, any political divergence from the TRUE meaning of the Constitution is perilous, regardless of it being "left" or "right." In essence, judicial activism is a horrid thing. Sorry for the confusion. The word "conservative" doesn't mean what it once did.