Duh!

In a landmark ruling today, the Supreme Court upheld the right to bear arms.  Duh!  You can't get any more basic than upholding what the Constitution says.  It was a close decision, split 5-4, and both sides felt that the same passage, "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.", meant different things.  We all know what the last part, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed" means, but we don't want to see people keeping bazookas in their homes supposedly for self defense.  So where do we go from here?  We are probably going to stay roughly the same.  Some gun control laws will be updated to make them more "constitutional" and the debate over guns will go on.  I think if you are a city with a lot of gun violence like Washington DC or Baltimore you need to revisit your strategy for keeping guns off the streets.  You could enact tighter controls over how can legally own them, make them more expensive, account for every bullet, and start incentive programs for people to get ride of their guns.  For my part, I think we the people have the right to firearms for self defense, hunting, gun clubs, militias, and other defense and recreational uses.  I think it makes sense to limit the types of guns to what citizens would actually use for their activities.  For instance, a duck hunter needs a shotgun instead of an AK-47.  A moose hunter needs a .310 instead of an uzi.  Perhaps we could do a study where we follow the uses of guns in a test set of people for 10 years or so to see what types of guns they use for what activities?  I think that would help us create better laws and regulations around gun ownership.  Anyway, a NY Times article about today's ruling can be found here.