If we get a 5th left-wing Justice ...

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While the majority opinions in Heller and McDonald contain some good language that seems to favor a high level of scrutiny, they expressly declined to rule on the standard.
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The case law hasn't been built yet, but again, they'd be flying in the face of precedent. Rights deemed fundamental are supposed to trigger strict scrutiny. It would take a great deal of wrangling and a fairly tortured line of argument to single out the 2nd Amendment as being undeserving of the same treatment.

If I were a liberal Justice, I'd seriously worry about such a thing. If the level of scrutiny can be abridged for one freedom, then the same goes for speech, privacy and worship.
 
The antis have made it pretty clear what their plans will be if they get the majority. They will make the "fundamental" right limited to the scope in Heller (handguns inside the home) and apply an "intermediate scrutiny" that in reality will look a lot more like rational basis.

This is one reason why there are something like 14 different critical gun cases going right now - our side is trying to get the courts to flesh out as many of these rules as possible while the Heller majority is still on the Supreme Court.

Which is all the more reason that organizations like SAF and the NRA Civil Defense Fund can use a donation of $5 or $10 if you can spare it. The legal fees to get to the Supreme Court are tremendous and we have a lot of ground to cover - the more dedicated RKBA lawyers we can put on the task, the better it is for us; but the problem is that Constitutional Second Amendment litigation isn't normally a big enough issue to support a lot of lawyers and has a fairly limited shelf life - so mostly people do it because they believe in it. But even when you believe in it, you still have to do something else on the side to feed your family and actually see them once in awhile. When it comes time to crank out a 30-page amicus brief in response to a point the antis raise, there just aren't that many people who can drop their normal work and family life and work for free for a month to get a good product out.
 
I feel out of place

I vote based upon multiple aspects of a candidate. The extreme left wing loonies scare the crap out of me, but so do the far right wing nut-jobs, especially some of the candidates that come from the Tea Party. Some of the same Tea Party people that believe in states having most of the authority cringe at having states determine gun rights, which is like going to a buffet and choosing to have a state disallow same sex marriage but there's no way I'm getting the "let the state determine gun laws". I'll vote for the candidate that best meets my needs as a whole, whether that'll be Dems, Reps, or Independents, but to base your entire voting on one issue is asking for trouble. How many bad politicians have made it in for being most "pro-life" and done nothing while being in office but could mess a lot of other things up.

The prosthelytizing of "doomsday" is the very reason why guns and ammo are so damn high. I'm sure the gun manufacturers, gun shops, and ammo makers are hoping Obama and Pelosi stay in office so that they can keep gouging people with their prices or because of how many people really believe in the "doomsday" and are buying everything they can, because of the fear that is spread by people freaking out.
 
The SCOTUS reverses itself and jettison precedents regularly. 1986-Bowers vs. Hardwick, SCOTUS rules 5-4 that states have the right to outlaw private homosexual acts. 2003-Lawrence vs. Texas-SCOTUS rules homosexuality is a
constitutionally protected freedom. Sandra Day O'connor voted with the majority both times.
 
A SCOTUS decision really doesn't mean anything anymore. The moment they get a couple leftist justices in they start rewriting all of the books. :barf:
 
I don't see it as a left-right issue of contention, rather one of a statist vs. individualist perspective. There are left-leaning folks who strongly support the 2nd Amendment, and there are right-leaning folks who are all-too-friendly to those who would strip it bare.

All that said, it certainly seems to me that should the Heller/MacDonald majority evaporate, the SCOTUS is far more likely to take a "back door" approach to repeal of the 2nd by using the discretion afforded via Heller for the local/state regulation of firearms and firearms transactions. There would be little need to directly reverse Heller - instead, you just kick out the legs from underneath it and render it meaningless.
 
Usually precedents that have been overturned have expanded rights. The support of segregation was overturned. Laws that attempted to regulate the sexual behavior of adults were overturned.

So overturning Heller or McD would be an interesting reversal to limit an expansion or strengthening of rights.

Does that play into thinking about reversal? I don't know.
 
1986-Bowers vs. Hardwick, SCOTUS rules 5-4 that states have the right to outlaw private homosexual acts. 2003-Lawrence vs. Texas-SCOTUS rules homosexuality is a constitutionally protected freedom.
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You've got a point there. I've heard the change in judicial philosophy on the matter between 1986 and 2003 had something to do with changing attitudes in the mind of the general public. Then again, I haven't read all the amicus briefs from both cases. It could very well be that one of them advanced novel new arguments in the second case that weren't presented in the first.

There are times the Court needs to change its stance. The Citizens United case was one example. Even then, however, Justice Roberts made it quite clear that reversing precedent was a matter to be taken very seriously. After all, if the Court reverses precedent too quickly and easily, then what credibility do those precedents have in the first place?

What's ironic is that in Lawrence v. Texas, Justice Stevens wrote that the Court had read the right to privacy too narrowly in Bowers. This is the same guy who wants the 2nd Amendment narrowed to nearly nothing.

...which brings us to Bartholomew's point. We still haven't built the case law. We need to establish a strict standard while the iron's hot, and we need to know the whole topography of the right in question before the idealogical balance changes.

SCOTUS is far more likely to take a "back door" approach to repeal of the 2nd by using the discretion afforded via Heller for the local/state regulation of firearms and firearms transactions
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That's what worries me. One of the worrying parts of Scalia's opinion in Heller was this bit:
(...) nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on (...) laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. (p. 54)
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We're seeing it in Chicago and Washington DC right now. A municipality could simply outlaw the sale of arms, and we've got a de facto ban. Heck, you could even skip the legislative process and do the same thing through zoning regulations.

We've still got work to do, and a limited window in which to do it.
 
In the case of Bowers vs. Hardwick being reversed in Lawrence vs. Texas, changing public attitudes had nothing to do with it. After the 2004 election the Wall Street Journal had an excellent editorial "The Blue State Court", noting how 11 states had public questions on their ballots regarding prohibiting
same sex marriage and affirming the traditional definition, in all 11 states- both Red and Blue- the voters approved consitutional amendments so doing. Rather too much of the work of the SCOTUS is actually done by the law clerks who are drawn too heavily from the elite law schools where homosexuals are over represented and have more clout. The liberals honked and whined and worked to reverse Bowers before the ink was dry on the opinion.
 
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