Gun Control and D.C. vs. Heller

[Relambrien]

Back in March, the U.S. Supreme Court made a ruling on a gun control law in Washington, D.C., in the case of D.C. vs. Heller. The law essentially stated that citizens were not permitted to keep handguns in their homes. The Court decided in a 5-4 split that the ban was unconstitutional, citing the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The Second Amendment reads as follows: "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

The majority opinion stated that the amendment does, in fact, protect individual rights to gun ownership, because the "militia" is made up of individual citizens. Thus, the government cannot ban gun ownership to those individuals.

Now that this has set a legal precedent, the only types of gun control cases that should cause any issues deal with the extent of such laws. For instance, bans on automatic weapons or explosive devices.

What I would like to know is CT's opinion of gun control. As for me, I'm still on the fence. I've seen people claim things like "Less than 1% of legal gun owners misuse their weapons," "Bans on firearms won't prevent criminals from illegally obtaining one," etc. I've also seen others cite low gun ownership rates in areas with low crime rates, and things like that.

Given the quality of this forum, I think there's some excellent discussion to be had on this topic. And after looking through the past ten pages, I didn't see any topics focusing on gun control, though I seem to remember some discussion in relation to other topics.

So, what do you think of this D.C. vs. Heller decision? How should the Second Amendment be interpreted? Does it apply now, since militias are archaic and no longer exist? Should it be amended to be more clear?