Breaking: SCOTUS Says 2nd Amendment Applies To States!

As expected, the US Supreme Court has ruled that the Second Amendment applies to states. You can find the complete ruling here:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-1521.pdf

Two years ago, in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554
U. S. ___ (2008), we held that the Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense, and we struck down a District of Columbia law that banned the possession of handguns in the home.The city of Chicago (City) and the village of Oak Park, a Chicago suburb, have laws that are similar to the District of Columbia’s, but Chicago and Oak Park argue that their laws are constitutional because the Second Amendment has no application to the States. We have previously held that most of the provisions of the Bill of Rights apply with full force to both the Federal Government and the States. Applying the standard that is well established in our case law, we hold that the Second Amendment right is fully applicable to the States.

So that's it, SCOTUS has spoken, and now states and cities with highly restrictive gun bans have been placed on notice. The Chicago gun ban was not overturned. However, the case was remanded back to the 7th Circuit Court.

In Heller, we held that the Second Amendment protects the right to possess a handgun in the home for the purpose of self-defense. Unless considerations of stare decisis counsel otherwise, a provision of the Bill of Rights that protects a right that is fundamental from an American perspective applies equally to the Federal Government and the States. See Duncan, 391 U. S., at 149, and n. 14. We therefore hold that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment right recognized in Heller. The judgment of the Opinion of the Court and the case is remanded for further proceedings.

The majority decision was authored by Alito, and concurring were Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Chief Justice Roberts. Dissenting were Justices Breyer, Stevens, Ginsburg, and Sotomayer. That's a fairly predictable split of opinions.

This decision puts overly restrictive gun laws on notice, but doesn't specifically state what "overly restrictive" IS. As with Heller, they reiterated that laws restricting access to felons or prohibiting the carrying of weapons into schools or municipal buildings are more or less safe. But they did NOT deal with several categories of other restrictive laws.

Which means, of course, that the age of litigating gun laws begins today. Since the court ruled that the fundamental reason for the Second Amendment was self-defense, laws mandating placing unloaded guns with gun locks in locked gun safes will be vulnerable to challenge and overturn. Anything that unreasonably restricts access to guns for the purpose of self-defense is open to challenge.

And that's a good thing.

UPDATE: Here's the first news article that I've found dealing with the decision. It's pretty bare bones... but it will take a while for in-depth analyses to be performed.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/06/28/supremecourt/main6626538.shtml