Potomac Confidential

Washington's Hour of Talk Power

Potomac Confidential fills the midday lull with discussion by Metro columnist Marc Fisher who looks at the latest news with a rigorous slicing and dicing of the issues that define who we are and where we live.

Today's Column: D.C.'s Handgun Ban Hits Unintended Targets (Post, June 26)

Fisher was online Thursday, June 26 at noon ET.

A transcript follows.

Check out Marc's blog, Raw Fisher>.

In his weekly show, Fisher veers wildly from serious probing to silly prattle, and is open to topics local, national, personal and more.

Archives: Discussion Transcripts>

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Marc Fisher: Welcome aboard, folks. The big story today, of course, is the D.C. gun ban ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. I've got a quick analysis of the opinions up on the blog, and perhaps you've had time to take a spin through the ruling, so let's hear what you think. Where will this take the District, both in terms of how it will now seek to regulate guns as well as your sense of how this may change the rate or character of gun violence and ownership in a city where many residents say they oppose legal possession of guns.

Other topics are welcome, but depending on traffic and flow, we may not get to much else today....

On to the gun talk, but first, a quick Yay and Nay of the Day:

Yay to Virginia Senators who finally woke up to reality and voted for a small increase in the gas tax--the only fair proposal for beginning to deal with the state's transportation crisis. But of course it was a largely symbolic vote given that there is zero chance that tax increase will make it through the Republican-controlled House.

Nay to the Prince George's court defendant--a retired D.C. cop!--who allegedly lobbied jurors in his own case involving a disputed house sale. The defendant, as reported by The Post's Ruben Castaneda today, approached jurors outside the courthouse and tried to talk to them about his case. That led to a mistrial, of course, but the incident is nonetheless disturbing, at least in part because James's appeal was, according to the judge, blatantly racial--asking two black jurors to take his side because he is black and the opponent in the civil case is white. Ugh.

Your turn starts right now....

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Washington, D.C.: Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty! Free at last!

Marc Fisher: That's certainly one view, and likely the majority view in most of the country, though not necessarily here in the District. But the focus now turns to the D.C. Council, a body of 13 elected officials every one of whom supports very strict gun regulations. Somehow, they are going to have to create a regulatory scheme that allows handgun possession--and most likely, sales as well--in a city where even the addition of a new wing to a school brings out loud and paralyzing neighborhood protests.

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McLean, Va.: The Second Amendment sets forth a reason for the right to bear arms (a well armed militia), but the Court's opinion seems to say that the right to bear arms is supported by other reasons (self-defense and hunting). Did the Court address the prefatory "militia" clause at all? Was this a bit of judicial activism, in creating new reasons for the right?

Marc Fisher: Yes, Scalia spends many pages getting into the history and the grammar of the prefatory phrase--the bit about the militias--that has been at the heart of arguments about the Second Amendment for many decades. Essentially, he concludes that the words about the militia are there as one example of the reason that Americans have the right to bear arms--but not as the single or even guiding justification for the right.

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Maryland: The obvious answer of how the city of D.C. needs to respond to the ruling is obviously... more road blockades! If you thought all those jersey barriers around our historic buildings was ugly, just wait until you see them all around the city.

Marc Fisher: Actually, there may be a serious side to your question, because it is entirely possible that the D.C. government, very much egged on by the feds, will seek to establish gun-free zones in the city, such as, for example, the Federal Triangle, or an extended Capitol campus.

Remember, the Bush administration came in with a brief that asked the Court to consider that the D.C. law might indeed be constitutional. Scalia's decision goes well beyond what the Bush administration wanted in this case.

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Washington DC: I live in DC and want to buy a handgun (legally). How do I do it?

Marc Fisher: You don't--yet.

It will likely be some months before the District government passes a new regulatory scheme--licensing at the least and perhaps more, and probably longer before rules for gun shops are promulgated and shops actually open. Expect some incredibly wild zoning battles ahead. Can you imagine how folks in, say, Cleveland Park or Tenleytown will react when someone comes along wanting to open a gun shop on Connecticut or Wisconsin avenues?

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Washington, DC: A personal question Marc:

Will you buy a gun?

Marc Fisher: No--as someone who believes all guns should be confiscated by the state, it would hardly make sense for me to go out and buy one.

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Arlington, VA: If Justice Scalia allowed a right to have a gun, where in the Second Amendment did he find that it is permissible to ban guns from government buildings. Perhaps it is because he works in one!

Marc Fisher: Scalia is very frank in his opinion about the fact that there will be a flurry, perhaps a storm, of litigation stemming from this decision, as states and other interested parties fight out just how much regulation of gun ownership and possession is now permitted. Scalia tossed in a few examples of regulation that he says is constitutional and reasonable--felons and the mentally ill shouldn't be allowed to have firearms, and they shouldn't be allowed in schools or other sensitive locations, he writes. But he says he saw no reason to create a catalogue of permissible restrictions.

You'd think that would be the legislature's job, but somehow Scalia--to my mind, the most brilliant and provocative of the justices--managed to decide that he's ok with the court naming a few kinds of regulation that are kosher.

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Alexandria, VA: I only wish that people would READ the opinion of the Court, and read it end-to-end, before they declare it a travesty or complain about it. I find it to be a very impressive bit of scholarship that does exactly what a court is supposed to do--analyzes what the law means and then applies it to the case at hand. I know most people will never read the opinion, and that's unfortunate because, regardless of whether one agrees with Scalia's opinions, I think he does a commendable job of setting out exactly why he (and his four colleagues in the majority) concluded that the law means what the opinion says. Anyone who reads the opinion should have no doubt as to why the result came out the way it did. Whether one agrees with whether that result is DESIRABLE is a totally separate question that is inappropriate for the Supreme Court.

Marc Fisher: I agree--having read the 157 pages of the opinion and the two dissents, all three opinions are fascinating and even somewhat persuasive, though Breyer's seems rather too narrow and is missing the powerful sweep and historical depth of the Scalia and Stevens opinions.

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Beltsville, MD:

So, five justices cant read, or choose to ignore half the words in a simple sentence.

Owning a handgun is not "necessary to the security of a free state."

Marc Fisher: For decades, people on both sides have debated the commas and the phrasing and the word order of the Second Amendment, and Scalia does get into some of that, but the dissenters leave that parsing mostly out of their opinions. This is about as definitive a ruling as you get from the Court, so the grammar arguments seem, at least for the remainder of our lifetimes, to be a matter of academic study and no longer a living part of the nation's constitutional debate.

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Washington, DC: As a 15 year resident of DC, I am continually disheartened by a debate such as this that assumes laws-on-books are actually enforced. Is their any inkling of realization within the DC government about how moot all this talk is? I live off Georgia Avenue and gunfire is a nightly occurrence. Many residents are threatened by the real authority in DC, young rough men with muscle and guns, and the hearing guarded elite of Fenty and Co. whine about an impending crime wave due to the removal of a ban just makes me angry. Its their failure to enforce laws that lead us commoners to protect ourselves.

Marc Fisher: Breyer's opinion is the only one that takes up the matter of crime on the streets of Washington, and he raises the point that murder rates in the District actually have gone up quite a bit since the gun ban was imposed. He rejects the idea that those crime stats can and should be used to justify the constitutionality or lack thereof of the D.C. ban--he says, conveniently enough for his view, that such matters should be left to the legislature to decide.

But it was disappointing that Scalia, who rarely shies away from at least rhetorically addressing such real-world factors, makes no mention of crime in the city, which is, after all, the only reason this case exists.

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Chevy Chase, D.C.: The Supreme Court decision was extremely depressing. I presume this means we will now see road rage incidents on the Beltway quickly escalating to Wild West shoot outs, all with Supreme Court imprimatur? Every man for himself?

Folks, it's time to emigrate.

Marc Fisher: Well, I wouldn't go nearly that far. The fact is that the District, given its tiny size and its utter dependence on Virginia and Maryland suburbs for its retail life, is not an independent economy, and therefore you're really not likely to see a whole lot more guns in the city after this ruling than you did before. Any bad guy who wanted a gun got one easily enough, and any good guy who really wanted a gun and disagreed with the law pretty much went out and bought one. I cannot begin to count the number of otherwise upstanding citizens of the city who have told me over the years that they keep a handgun regardless of the city's law.

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Fredericksburg, Va.: Well it's clear the mayor's office and the the district's officials haven't learned their lesson. They are now going to institute draconian regulations and as restrictive laws as possible. So much for the Supreme Court. I see the district winding up back in court within 2 years.

Marc Fisher: I'm sure some on the Council will seek to pass as tough regulations as they think they can get away with, but the bottom line is that guns will now be legal to own. The big question in my mind is whether the ruling necessarily means that gun sales will also become legal in the city.

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Burke, Va.: And Marc, that's why my friends and I own several fully automatic assault rifles, numerous handguns and several tons of explosives, to prevent that day from coming when the government tries to seize our guns.

Marc Fisher: I love it that we're a country of big dreamers.

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Washington, D.C.: What does this decision mean to the rest of the country? Are there bans elsewhere, and will this lead to other reversals?

Marc Fisher: The District's was the strictest ban in the nation, but as Breyer notes in his dissent, Chicago's comes fairly close and there are a fair number of small towns and suburbs that have near-bans in place. Presumably many if not all of those will now be revisited.

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Arlington, Va..: Marc -

Could you please clarify the title of your article this morning: "D.C.'s Handgun Ban Hits Unintended Targets." I fail to understand what is so "unintended" about the target of the ban. It is a universal ban, and they've consciously kept it universal for over 30 years. The only reasonable conclusion is that they did, in fact, intend to keep people like Allan Lucas from owning a handgun, and that is exactly why they are being challenged today. I fail to see what was so "unintentional" about it all. You act as if this 30-year ban was an accident!

Marc Fisher: Ah, but it was never really universal. More than 10,000 people in the city had permission to own handguns because they work as security guards or once worked for local or federal law enforcement. What Mr. Lucas faced was a bizarre situation in which the city licensed him to be a firearms instructor to students in the District--people whom the District requires to recertify their shooting skills every year--yet does not permit him to do business in the District.

Here's the column....

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washingtonpost.com: D.C.'s Handgun Ban Hits Unintended Targets (Post, June 26)

Marc Fisher: Today's column...

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New Topic, Please: Can we NOT make this an all-guns chat?

Marc Fisher: We'll go another few minutes all-guns, then mix it up a bit, then come back to guns....

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Rockville, MD: I'm so confused. Does this ruling only cover "hand guns?" Do the poeple have a right to "machine guns?" If it fits in your hand it's legal?

washingtonpost.com: Only Gheorge Muresan can own a machine gun.

Marc Fisher: Scalia's opinion specifically mentions that the court thinks it's fine for government to ban ownership of certain classes of weapons, but they don't get into cataloguing what's ok and what's not, except for Scalia's statement about handguns being ok because they're so popular. (Wouldn't nifty little home nuclear devices be really popular too if they were put on the market?)

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Silver Spring , MD: Why was the gun lock requirement struck down?

Marc Fisher: Scalia several times smacked around the trigger lock provision of the D.C. law, saying that it prevents people from using guns for the main purpose they've purchased them for--self-defense.

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Chicago IL: On the gun ban opinion, there's one thing in particular I don't get.

Scalia goes to great lengths to argue that a blanket ban is unconstitutional. Fine, but that begs the obvious question of why we can't all have at home whatever weapons our National Guard units have, since they're our current militia. The 2nd Amendment nowhere distinguishes between handguns and machineguns, etc. In Section III of his opinion Scalia (very lamely, I think) responds that we still can't buy M-16s etc. because technology has advanced too far, making these guns too dangerous for ordinary citizens to have in their home, or something.

But isn't that the same rationale gun control advocates use? That in our modern society guns have become too dangerous to treat like just another consumer product, and that 18th century notions of civil defense are antiquated and obsolete? If we can reinterpret the 2nd Amendment to ban the modern-day equivalent of the very guns the Framers had in mind, such as M-16s, then why can't we reinterpret the 2nd Amendment to bans any other guns we deem dangerous to society? Thanks.

Marc Fisher: Yes, you're making an argument similar to Breyer's, that local governments should have the right to decide that some weapons are so dangerous that they have an undue impact on public safety, and the first objective of those governments is to protect people's security. Scalia is not entirely clear on this point--he several times says that there is a legitimate state interest in regulating guns in some way, and he gives the examples I repeated above. But he also says he's not going to get into the level of detail that would be necessary for local governments to know what they can and cannot do.

And Scalia never really lays down a useful foundation for localities to decide what makes one kind of ban constitutional and another not.

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Washington, DC: One quibble with one of your prior answers. The opinion of the Court DOES mention the problem of handgun violence in this country (slip op. at 64) but notes that the enshrinement of the constitutional right to keep and bear arms means that, like it or not, certain solutions to that problem are not permitted. "Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct."

Marc Fisher: Yes, there is that mention of crime overall, but Scalia never addresses what was actually a very large piece of the argument in the case from both sides--the facts on the ground in the District and other big cities with awful crime problems.

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Kitty Hawk, NC: Where can we read the opinions issued by the court?

washingtonpost.com: Here is a PDF of it>, courtesy of scotusblog.

Marc Fisher: It's well worth an hour of your time to read all the opinions. Whatever your views on this or other social issues, I think you'll be impressed by both the Scalia and Stevens opinions.

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Alexandria, VA: Marc, you want ALL guns confiscated by the state? You realize that's impossible. Criminals will get their hands on guns by any means necessary, while only law abiding citizens would give up their weapons (after all, they abide by the law).

Almost every study I have read shows that violent crime DROPS when private citizens are allowed to own and/or carry firearms. And that crime RISES when private citizens are now allowed to arm themselves.

Have you considered the dire consequences and increased crime banning all guns would have?

Marc Fisher: That's why confiscation makes far more sense to me than a ban like the District's, which had only minimal impact on anyone, and no impact whatever on bad guys.

I don't see any dire consequences; to the contrary, what you'd have is what you have in many countries around the world where no gun ownership is tolerated: Vastly fewer gun deaths.

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MD: Do you really believe all guns should be confiscated by the state? Perhaps you're a more reasonable person than I originally thought!

Marc Fisher: Just wait a day or two--I'm sure I'll write something that will get you back to railing against my unreasonable nature.

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Washington, DC: That's not what Scalia said. Scalia said handguns are ok because they are overwhelmingly used for the lawful purpose of self-defense. This is a very important disctintion. If you can think of a lawful use of discharging a nuclear weapon, I'd like to hear it.

Marc Fisher: Any number of such uses are conceivable: A nice tiny nuke could indeed be used in theory against a band of marauding terrorists or against a takeover of the city by alien forces, or against a band of state security officers out to confiscate your guns.

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Washington, DC: I work very close to where Dick Heller works and, to me, the real irony of this entire litigation is that DC could have prevented its entire gun law from being struck down if the Chief of Police had only been sensible and allowed this special policeman an exemption to the general ban. But, in typical DC style, extremism is the only way to go. DC has only itself to blame for this decision.

Marc Fisher: That wouldn't have changed anything. The folks at Cato and elsewhere who manufactured this challenge to the D.C. gun ban were very smart and very careful about choosing their plaintiffs; if Heller's case had developed holes or been rendered moot, they'd have found plenty of replacements for him.

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McLean Gardens, D.C.: Can a condominium complex have rules for it's owners that contradict rules for the city, such as they have rules for other things that sometimes are stricter than what the city as a whole allows?

Marc Fisher: Sure, you could probably have a no-guns condo just as you have seniors-only condos or no-smoking condos. There's a lot of leeway for private, voluntary regulation that goes beyond what would be legal in a public setting.

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Washington, DC: The best result of this decision? A wedge issue is off the table! I've always been of the opinion that leaders on the far left and far right never really wanted any resolution on issues such as gun control, abortion, illegal immigration, etc., because they use these issues to drum up funds and votes. Personally, I disagree with the majority. But I take heart in the possibility that a common electoral refrain - "They're trying to take away your guns!!!!" - will be less prevalent in our discourse.

Marc Fisher: So guns, God and gays--the magic formula for Republicans in so many campaigns--has lost one leg of its stool? Perhaps. And certainly public opinion is shifting quickly on homosexuality. Does this portend a new era of more serious policy debate?

Nah.

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Boonsboro, MD: I read Scalia's opinion this morning, and he simply demolishes the 'technical parsing' type arguments. He correctly points out - what many have forgotten - is that the Constitution was written in plain language so ordinary people can undertsand it. If some people don't like the wording, feel free to start an Admendment petition.

Marc Fisher: Well, one person's plain language is another's obfuscation. Your average grammarian would argue that the phrase about the militia is indeed integral to the amendment's guarantee of a right to bear arms. But his use of and defense of plain language is a big part of what makes Scalia's opinions so much fun to read and so compelling in so many cases.

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Scalia: Provocative? Yes.

Brilliant? No. Not stupid, mind you, but far from brilliant.

Marc Fisher: Read his opinion against Breyer's and tell me which is the clearer and more compelling thinker.

Then read Scalia against Stevens and you'll be more encouraged that there are indeed some lawyers who can both think and write. But not many.

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Greater Green Bay: Is there any connection between today's Supreme Court decision and the ban on shirtless guys at the Nationals ballpark? I mean, at least without a shirt it would be tougher to conceal a handgun....

Marc Fisher: That could be a factor in the D.C. Council's deliberations--perhaps they'll grudgingly legalize handguns and then require that anyone who carries one may not wear anything else. Would do wonders for tourism.

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Alexandria, VA: The Smithsonian Folklife Festival used to be fun. Used to be exciting. This year's festival features Bhutan, NASA, and Texas. Really? No plans to go (except for Bhutan). None. Clearly there are politics afoot at the Smithsonian. Maybe the Justice Department should launch an investigation there as well.

Marc Fisher: Yeah, I'm not exactly thrilled to pieces by the prospect of visiting the food tents in the NASA part of the festival. Tang? Plastic packets of chipped beef?

But I am eager to taste Bhutan's offerings.

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Screech: Finally, the Nationals can have Handgun Night! Slogan: "Bring the heat and the Nats will too!"

Marc Fisher: Yikes--I can far too easily imagine some nut job deciding it's time to deliver his own personal version of an unconditional release to one of the team's more disappointing performers.

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12:45: And still no topic introduced except the gun ban. Is no one writing in about anything else?

washingtonpost.com: Not really.

Marc Fisher: Very little--sorry, we can leap into other issues next time, but once in a while, one story dominates in a very big way. This is one o' those times.

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Arlington, VA: Marc,

Can we give a Nay to the Republicans in the Virginia House of Delegates for keeping the Senate-passed gas tax increase from even coming up for a vote?

How do they propose raising the money for all the road and bridge repairs that have been put off for 20 years?

What's their solution if their mantra is no new taxes and no tax increases?

Marc Fisher: That's their solution. No new taxes, no new money, no new roads, no new transit. It's easy, it's clear and it has its supporters all over rural Virginia. Face it--this is a deeply divided state, and far more by region and culture than by party or ideology.

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washingtonpost.com: Va. Senate Approves 6-Cent Rise In Gas Tax> (Post, June 26)

Marc Fisher: Here's today's story on that....

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Alexandria, VA: The Chicago ban will be unaffected. Even the majority opinion takes pains to emphasize that their ruling does NOT mean that the Second Amendment is "incorporated" with the rest of the Bill of Rights--that is, it affects only the federal government (and its entities like the District) and not state/local governments.

Marc Fisher: That's not how I read it at all. The opinion very much lumps the District law in with other laws across the land without making the slightest nod toward the special status of the District. An opinion in this case could well have harped on the unique status of the District and been written as a result in far narrower scope. But Scalia and the majority did not choose that path.

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Fairfax, VA: If a condominium complex DOES institute a no gun policy, wouldn't that be a quick way to lower the real estate values there, as every potential armed robber in the city saw it as an inviting, safe target?

Marc Fisher: Depends where you live--in the District, given the population and its political leanings, it could be a big boost to value.

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Arlington, Va.: Didn't Chris Rock say in his 1999 HBO show that we should just make bullets cost $5,000 each?

washingtonpost.com: Chris Rock Bullet Control> (youtube.com, probably NSFW)

Marc Fisher: If gun makers were held accountable by courts for the damage done by their products, you'd quickly see a pricing regimen very much along those lines.

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Guns for self defense: I grew up shooting at soda cans on the fence with a 22

rifle - still fun to do. My boss hunts and enjoys it. I don't

think all guns should be banned. I think buying a gun

should involve a background check, education and

registering the weapon.

What I do believe is that any person buying a gun for self

defense needs to really think about what that means. If I

had a gun and some one was coming at me, I would have

to aim at upper body mass and fire multiple rounds. That

would result in death or severe injury. I'm not ready to

take on that responsibility. I'll stick to soda cans on the

fence.

Marc Fisher: That's quite similar to what the gun instructor I profile in today's column told me--many of the people who sign up for his training end up deciding not to own a gun for fear that they could not handle the responsibility properly.

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Clifton, VA: I use C4 to remove stumps and to clear land.

Totally legit reason. Although my possession of C4 is illegal like many similar laws the govt be it local, state or Fed has not done anything. C4 is also excellent for starting

charcoal or a fire in the fireplace. No stupid just because you light doesnt mean it will explode. Yes Marc I have several tons of C4 and would go to jail for life plus if the govt caught me.

Now life would be easier on the farm if I could own 155mm howitzer to clear land and stumps. And a heck of lot more fun.

Marc Fisher: My sense is that the fact that you're not supposed to have the C4 is at least an important reason why you choose to have it. Which, of course, is very much the American way.

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Rockville, maryland:"Your average grammarian would argue that the phrase about the militia is indeed integral to the amendment's guarantee of a right to bear arms."

No argument there, but what I see is "If you want a well regulated militia, everyone should have the right to bear arms."

I do not get "Everyone with a gun should be a member of a militia."

It drove me crazy when people said "It really means..."

I can read.

Marc Fisher: It was a question of purpose, and interestingly, Breyer in his dissent concedes that self-defense was one purpose that the Founders had in mind when crafting the Second Amendment. But Scalia seems to give short shrift to the idea that the right to bear arms was very much regarded as a right that derived from the common responsibility that men had to act as the militia and protect the community from threats. Would we get that kind of voluntary participation against a threat today? I'm not so certain.

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Bethesda: Marc,

The predictions about a crime wave breaking out are a little much. The Supreme Court didn't legalize murderer or duels at 10 paces, they merely said law-abiding citizens should be allowed to purchase guns.

No matter what people think about this, I'm already tired of the hysterics. Of all the reasons to move out of DC, I'd say legalizing handguns is probably pretty far down on the list.

Marc Fisher: Agreed--I'd be shocked if this change in the law has any impact either way on crime or shootings in the District. You might get one or two more cases a year of someone in a ritzy part of town shooting his own kid by mistake or shooting a neighbor who was mistaken for a prowler, but no real shift in crime patterns.

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Wedge Issue:"A wedge issue is off the table!"

Nope -- just like Roe backers -- the 2nd amendment defenders will say (rightfully so) we're just a few court appointments away from a restriction of our rights.

Marc Fisher: Excellent analogy--the mere fact that an issue is settled by the high court doesn't stop the fundraisers on all sides from drumming up fear and loathing, whether the issue is guns, abortion or any other hot button.

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Hubcapitol Hill, D.C.: Wasn't that an informative and accurate article> in City Paper last week about D.C.'s neighborhoods? Can I guess that its frankness rubbed some NIMBY types the wrong way? I for one didn't like Subarubia for Tenleytown; Mattresstown is much better.

Marc Fisher: Yes, a splendid catalogue of city neighborhoods in last week's edition of the local alt weekly. Very nicely done.

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Arlington, VA: If the Nats have a Gun Night, can they do a special Racing Presidents with Abe being chased by Booth, along with other guest presidents and their assassins?

Marc Fisher: I will pay a premium to be there on Disgruntled Officeseeker Night.

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Right to defend yourself!: Hooray for the Supreme Court's recognition of the illegality of DC's gun ban!

Now, hopefully, DC will decide to require gun safety classes before getting a license. I'm all for gun rights, but people need to know how to handle them, and how to be safe with them!

Marc Fisher: Could be--that's certainly the kind of move you'd expect from the D.C. Council. And it might even pass muster with the courts.

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re: NASA: Really, they are a part of the Folklife Festival? That doesn't make any sense at all. Next year maybe we can have a tent for cafeteria offerings from various government building eateries.

Marc Fisher: Yum--can't wait. Then, as a truly edgy cultural offering, the Festival can honor 7-Eleven the following year.

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not about guns: The folklife festival always features a country, a state, and something else, so Bhutan/Texas/NASA, while a little weird, is in line with tradition. But I'm totally excited about NASA! I assume they have, like, cool technological stuff in tents, right? That's totally awesome! (I'm going down to look at it this weekend.)

Marc Fisher: I guess they're running out of places with top-quality cuisine. I hope the organizers realize that most folks come for the music and the food, and that while the various basket-weaving demos are nice to have, that's not why tens of thousands of people flock to the Mall on a steamy July afternoon.

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Silver Spring, Md.: Someone noted:

"notes that the enshrinement of the constitutional right to keep and bear arms means that, like it or not, certain solutions to that problem are not permitted."

Does this line of thinking apply to Amendments 5 through 8 with respect to our "war on terror"?

Marc Fisher: Give it a try--file your case.

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Takoma Park: Isn't Scalia supposed to support "original meaning" and the notion that the Constitution should be interpreted in the way that a reasonable person of that time would have understood its lanugage? I don't see how such a person would have parsed the language of the second amendment to justify the right to gun ownership on the basis of the need for hunting and personal protection, which are not mentioned in the text.

Marc Fisher: Original meaning is important--crucial--when it's convenient. The rest of the time, personal opinion seems to substitute just fine.

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Sterling, Va.: Why are over half the questions you're getting asking things that are clearly answered in Scalia's written opinion? (machine guns, trigger locks, and so on.) Seriously people, just read the dang thing yourself. I'm not a lawyer or anything close, and I found it very readable and easy to understand. Agree with it or don't, but the reasoning is written out plainly.

Marc Fisher: The vast majority of people can easily go a lifetime without reading a Supreme Court ruling, and that's fine. They can be very difficult slogging, but I agree with you--today's are well worth the read, and are quite accessible to anyone without the slightest legal training.

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DC: Scalia is the justice in the recent habeas case who said that granting the right to Guantanamo prisoners would lead to the deaths of more Americans.

I was curious if he mentioned this possibility in his opinion today.

Marc Fisher: Funny, not a word about that.

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"If you want a well regulated militia, everyone should have the right to bear arms." : It's neither.

It's "our militia should have guns."

Marc Fisher: Yes, but to be fair, it's also the idea that the militia consists of everyone (or at least everyone as they defined it back in the 1700s, which excluded a lot of people by today's standards.)

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Re:

" I cannot begin to count the number of otherwise upstanding citizens of the city who have told me over the years that they keep a handgun regardless of the city's law."

As the old saying goes, I'd rather be judged by 12 than

carried by 6.

Marc Fisher: One side heard from, and here's the other....

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Owings, Md.: As are most decisions by the Supreme Court this one tries to cut the baby in half; on one hand I now have the defined right to own a fire arm, on the other hand the state now can regulate that ownership through registration (the slippery slope to removal of that right), our forefathers gave us that right because they understood that governments do go bad and need the people to be able to re-assert control over it has to be protected.

D.C.'s law never did achieve it's goal of "making the streets safer" and only proved the NRA's position that if you outlaw guns then only outlaws will have guns. The law was also proven to be a false premise by the unusual circumstances that surround Florida's 90 day period of no hand gun deaths when their legislature failed to close the loophole that ended one law and started the other 90 days later, a period anyone could carry a concealed weapon legally making it very dangerous for criminals.

Marc Fisher: We're over our alloted time, so just a few more today....

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Alexandria, VA: What are the chances Obama gets the assault weapons ban re-enacted given this decision if he takes the White House? Clearly the sentiment of the Court right now would indicate that any challenge to a ban like before would be upheld.

Marc Fisher: Not really--Scalia's opinion specifically blesses bans on certain classes of weapons that may be deemed too dangerous or too far afield from any possible notion of self-defense or hunting.

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Washington DC : Not being a devil's advocate, however the interim D.C. Attorney General indicated that gun owners could not have been convicted of a felony; is the AG assuming that a felon who has long paid his debt to society cannot/should not have the same right of protection as others?

Wouldn't the requirement for a "written test to be sure they understand the city's gun laws" be better replaced with a requirement that the gun owner demonstrates he/she can safely operate the weapon? That is, how to shoot, how to take apart and maintain the weapon, etc.? Even military personnel, part of the militia, are trained and tested in the use of weapons.

Will persons be able to "carry" in public places concealed or open?

What makes sensitive places "such as" schools and government buildings different than, say, crowded theaters, etc. And, does the Mall or city parks count as government buildings?

Marc Fisher: These are all the sorts of questions the city will now have to figure out. Watch for months of searing debate on all this.

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Washington, DC: Practical Questions: If, as Nickles said, guns would only be allowed in the home (and not on the street), how does one actually purchase the gun to get it to their house without violating the regulation?

Marc Fisher: Not clear--Nickles, the city's interim attorney general, gave the Post's David Nakamura some of his thinking on how gun registration will work in the District, and that's over on our D.C. Wire blog right now.

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Washington DC: Mr. Fisher, good day.

I enjoy your writing and am glad you did not take the buyout. When I have read other comments on earlier transcripts suggesting you should have, it makes me mad.

Marc Fisher: Many thanks. Of course, others disagree.

And thanks to the many of you I couldn't get to in this very busy hour and a bit today. Back next week with a more varied menu of topics. Thanks for coming along. There's more on the gun ban over at Raw Fisher.

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