Miscellaneous

From my cold, dead hands!

Yesterday, the Supremes heard oral argument in District of Columbia v. Heller, a pretty big-deal case dealing with the Second Amendment and a D.C. law that tried to ban the hell out of handguns. If you're looking for a straight transcript of the oral argument, SCOTUSblog has your back. But you'd be much better off heading over to Slate, because Dahlia Lithwick's argument recaps are always top notch (nowhere else will you learn that "there is little romance to be found in parsing Ye Olde Constitution").

Trying to figure out how the Supremes will rule based on oral argument is a sometimes risky proposition, but Lithwick thinks that there are already "five votes to create a fundamental right to bear arms, only eight minutes into the argument." Over at Concurring Opinions, Mike O'Shea takes his shot at prognostication and also predicts an affirmation of everyone's right to spread some lead.

A nice finishing touch on your quick and dirty Heller education can be gotten over at the WSJ Law Blog, where the Wall Street Journal's regular SCOTUS correspondent spins the oral argument, also saying that we can expect a formalized individual right to bear arms when the decision comes down.

Lock 'em and load 'em, y'all!

Full post as published by Quiz Law on March 19, 2008 (boomark / email).