I for one am ready for this nonsense to be decided on. IS WE, OR AIN'T WE FREE!!! It's time that we got a clear ruling from the Supreme Court on the 2nd.
Jack99- I agree, let's get it settled one way or the other. If the SC goes against us we won't be much worse off than we are now, since Congress acts as though there is no 2nd Amendment anyway.
I think that if we get a bad ruling it might just wake up some of the 95% of gunowners who don't do anything to help protect their rights. I think that a lot of then, including a big majority of hunters, believe that the 2nd will protect their guns if it ever comes to a showdown. If they see that isn't the case they might become active in the legislative arena.
One other thought, the 2nd and 7th Amendments are the only two of the original ten that have never been "incorporated" into the 14th Amendment protections by the SC. Up until the 14th Amendment was ratified, the Bill of Rights only applied to the Federal government, over the years since then the SC has used the "incorporation doctrine" to extend most of them to include the state goverments, but not the 2nd or the 7th. That means that the 2nd only restricts the Federal government from infringing the RKBA, the states and local governments aren't affected. The anti-gun states like MA and NJ could still be as oppressive as they want, and the SC decision wouldn't have any effect.
I believe the last decision on this was in the '50's when Justice Frankfurter wrote that it was a settled matter that the 2nd was a restraint on Federal government only. I don't know the name of the case, but it could probably be found by reviewing Frankfurter's opinions.
The best of all worlds would be for the SC to decide the 2nd protects an individual right, and then incorporate it into the protections afforded by the 14th, meaning it would also restrain state and local lawmakers. This probably won't happen, but at least an individual right decision would get the Feds off our backs. Then we could go after the state and local laws in the state courts, at least in those states which have a RKBA clause in their constitution.
If there are any constitutional lawyer out there who could comment on the "incorporation" doctrine, please give us some more info, it seems like a gray area to me.