Alan GuraWinning attorney Alan Gura wrote an under 500 word essay at SCOTUSblog which summarizes the McDonald victory and what it means for the Second Amendment.

Image - Alan Gura at the 2009 Gun Blogger Rendezvous

Here is the beginning of Alan Gura’s article:

McDonald – A Victory for the Second Amendment

The Second Amendment is a normal part of the Bill of Rights – that much is the essential rule of McDonald v. City of Chicago. In the glass-two-drops-full department, opponents of the right to arms find refuge in statements recalling that the Second Amendment “does not imperil every law regulating firearms.” We can all breathe easier knowing that airport metal detectors are going nowhere.

Of course, the First Amendment, a Bill of Rights provision with which the courts are vastly more experienced, does not imperil the overwhelming majority of speech regulations. For example, the police may ask those of us reveling in the McDonald decision to keep the party within our neighborhoods’ defined maximum noise levels. This much is just common-sense, confirmed by familiar time, place and manner standards. But just as the First Amendment will not tolerate the arbitrary licensing of political speech or punitive fees for expressive conduct, neither does the Second Amendment tolerate the gun prohibitionists’ agenda of frustrating the right to arms with excessive regulation. Politicians can justify any law. With respect to laws reaching some topics – including arms – the Constitution requires much more than paeans to the public good.

The Second Amendment is itself a reasonable, common-sense gun law – it provides powerful security for a fundamental individual right. Governments contemplating gun regulations out of legitimate concern for public safety may occasionally be reminded of their limits by courts, but good faith actors should find today’s decision no more troubling than any other precedent effectuating basic constitutional limitations. On the other hand, politicians approaching gun regulation as a means of continuing their disagreement with the Constitution’s enumerated policy choice on the subject will discover that doing so carries a price taxpayers do not wish to spend – and ultimately achieves nothing. [more]