SCOTUS Taking Aim At Gun Debate

The Supreme Court is poised to forbid cities and states from banning handguns, advice bringing an anticlimactic end to a political firefight that petered out decades ago.

Court-watchers expect the ruling in McDonald vs. City of Chicago to have little immediate policy impact outside the Windy City. And the ruling is unlikely to alter the policy agenda of gun control advocates, who haven’t pushed handgun bans for 30 years.

But the ruling could open the door for a long-overdue public reckoning about the place of firearms in civil society. Such a debate is especially timely as gun rights advocates increasingly exert their political muscle by staging armed “musters” — or assemblies — in national parks and by openly carrying pistols to public meetings, to legislators’ offices, even to Whole Foods and Starbucks.-[source]