Just wanted to let folks know about the excellent outcome in a recent case decided by a panel of three federal judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The court held in Nordyke v. King that the Second Amendment is binding on state and local governments.

This is the very first ruling on that question since the Heller case was decided by SCOTUS and is good news for all Americans!

Here is the key holding:

"We therefore conclude that the right to keep and bear arms is 'deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition.' Colonial revolutionaries, the Founders, and a host of commentators and lawmakers living during the first one hundred years of the Republic all insisted on the fundamental nature of the right. It has long been regarded as the 'true palladium of liberty.' Colonists relied on it to assert and to win their independence, and the victorious Union sought to prevent a recalcitrant South from abridging it less than a century later. The crucial role this deeply rooted right has played in our birth and history compels us to recognize that it is indeed fundamental, that it is necessary to the Anglo-American conception of ordered liberty that we have inherited. We are therefore persuaded that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment and applies it against the states and local governments."

Nordyke v. King, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, San Francisco, CA, April 20, 2009

Although binding only in the Ninth Circuit, this ruling is very promising and may lead the way for further appeals court rulings in other circuits, and possibly for ultimate review and sanction by SCOTUS.

The bad news is that the court upheld the law that was challenged in the case, which banned firearms on county property, as a valid regulation of the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

The validity of particular laws and regulations will be the battleground of future Second Amendment jurisprudence.

P.S. - I understand that two of the three judges on the panel that handed down this ruling were Democratic appointees, and the concurring opinion, which is particularly strong, was written by a Clinton appointee. Thus proving that one never knows how to predict how any particular judge may turn out . . .

Excellent news, thanks for the post....and in San Francisco, no less.....will wonders never cease.