Take the Parker Poll!

SayUncle is running a poll on Parker. I’ll make my prediction:

The Supreme Court grants cert. Reasonable regulation of firearms are OK, but it gets treated as a right. I don’t expect the court to go into much detail on what kind of regulations it would accept, just that DC’s law is in violation of the second amendment. They’ll leave that to the lower courts to argue over for a few years, then take another case. I think the ruling will be 6-3 in favor of an individual right. It will go thusly:

In the majority, in order of how certain I feel we’ll have them on our side:

1. Thomas
2. Scalia
3. Roberts
4. Alito
5. Kennedy
6. Ginsburg

In dissent, also in order of how sure I feel:

1. Breyer
2. Stevens
3. Souter

I figure the last two could go either way. Souter I’m not sure about being in dissent. Of course, Roberts and Alito we don’t really know much about. We know Roberts knows the law surrounding the second amendment from his confirmation hearings, which suggests he’s looked into it, or at least knew that might come up in the hearings. Really, I think we only have two votes on The Court we can be certain of, and that’s Scalia and Thomas (both of whom are shooters). I think we can feel pretty confident that Alito and Roberts wouldn’t look too kindly on ignoring part of the Bill of Rights. Strangely enough, I think Ginsberg, despite being the most liberal justice on The Court (by some people’s measure) with a background in civil rights litigation, and being big on women’s issues (remember, Parker is a woman), won’t look too kindly on throwing out part of the Bill of Rights either. I think Kennedy could go either way, but suspect he’ll fall on the individual rights side, also not wanting to poop on the Bill of Rights.

But who knows. Chances of me being spot on are slim. Hopefully any surprises are pleasant. The big worry I have is not so much Parker, but what comes after. What kind of regulations will the courts accept? Will the cases that move forward through the federal courts be as good as Parker? Probably not. We’ll surely have setbacks. But if we prevail in Parker, and I think we will, it will shift the battle against the gun control movement into significantly better ground. It will be the most significant victory for gun rights of my lifetime.

UPDATE: Be sure to read Dave Hardy’s take.  He posts the following from one of Ginsburg’s opinions:

“Surely a most familiar meaning is, as the Constitution’s Second Amendment (“keep and bear Arms”) (emphasis added) and Black’s Law Dictionary, at 214, indicate: “wear, bear, or carry . . . upon the person or in the clothing or in a pocket, for the purpose . . . of being armed and ready for offensive or defensive action in a case of conflict with another person.””