Today the Supreme Court released its decision affirming Heller v. District of Columbia, finding the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own and possess a handgun for defensive purposes in one’s home.

The finding of an individual right has been widely expected in the gun rights community since oral arguments earlier this year, but the results were still a bit surprising, at least to me.

First, the court was divided 5-4, with all four liberals dissenting. If Justice Kennedy had gone the other way, we’d have a SCOTUS precedent for the collective rights interpretation of the 2A! If any gun rights supporters stay home in November to protest McCain’s various liberal experiments or the GOP’s feckless and spendthrift ways, well, let posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!

The dissenting opinions are the usual anti-gun crap, notable only because it’s coming from sitting Supreme Court justices. The majority opinion, written by Justice Scalia, is very narrow, and leaves the door wide open for future legal battles over gun registration, gun licensing, bans on classes of weapons like “assault weapons”, bans on concealed carry, bans on carry in “sensitive” government building, etc. All of those foolish posts on gun boards over the last few months predicting the immediate and total destruction of all gun laws post-Heller will be sorely disappointed.

Overall, it’s a good day for freedom in America. We now have a Supreme Court precedent finding an individual right to gun ownership for defense. However, there’s still a long way to go, and we’ll need Constitutionalist justices to get there. If you care about gun rights, stay as far away from Obama as possible, support that lesser-evil son-of-a-bitch McCain, and encourage others to do the same.