To follow up on Pema's important post below, it's important to note that absolutely nothing in the Heller decision -- whose reading of the Second Amendment was applied to the states by the Supreme Court yesterday -- suggests that laws preventing persons convicted of domestic-abuse offenses from owning handguns is unconstitutional. Scalia's opinion strongly suggested that people convicted of felony domestic abuse could be disqualified from gun ownership and was silent on the question of how misdemeanor convictions could affect Second Amendment rights. In general, the Second Amendment rights laid down in the opinion were quite narrow and left substantial scope for reasonable restrictions on the right to bear arms.
But it is not inevitable that such regulations will be upheld. As Pema says, defining the scope of Heller will be an important ongoing struggle. Which means that liberal groups (including feminist groups) need to work hard when cases arise, and also that President Obama and Democrats in the Senate need to work hard to get good judges confirmed for seats on the federal appellate bench. The Supreme Court has left a lot of questions unanswered, and it's important that the future cases not prevent states from protecting victims of domestic abuse from gun violence.
--Scott Lemieux
