Second (Amendment) Thoughts

The Supreme Court's ruling on the Second Amendment rendering the District of Columbia's ban on handguns may seem chilling at first, until you you read the fine print. While Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, declared that the right of the people to bear arms is not limited to state militias, he did say that some common-sense regulation is necessary, especially in keeping guns away from schools or out of the hands of people with criminals. The only problem is that the Second Amendment was interpreted so vaguely by the Court, someone without a criminal record could conceivably buy a gun with the intent of committing a crime - given the laws the vary between locales. While this decision may embolden the National Rifle Association, it might just as easily embolden gun control advocates, eager to get a president more sympathetic than George Walker Bush to their cause once the Shrub is out of office.