The U.S. Supreme Court has not decided whether to take the Washington, D.C., handgun-ban case, but National Rifle Association lobbyist Wayne LaPierre says in a fund-raising letter that, “The biggest Second Amendment court battle in history is about to begin,” says the American Bar Association Journal. The justices are expected to decide by early November whether to accept the case. It may give the court the clearest chance ever to say once and for all whether the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to own guns, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held, or merely affords states a way to arm their militias, as nearly every other court to consider the issue has concluded.
LaPierre says “this is the biggest legal battle that we have ever fought.” The ABA Journal points out that the case is not the NRA’s. The gun rights supporters who filed it complain that lawyers working for the NRA, concerned the case could backfire, spent considerable time and money trying to scuttle it. The Journal says the NRA “finally was dragged kicking and screaming before the Supreme Court after the prospect of review appeared more likely than it has in years.” Josh Sugarmann of he anti-gun Violence Policy Center tells the Journal that “The NRA wants to be the one to define the meaning of the Second Amendment. They don't want the Supreme Court to do it, because the [NRA view] is good for [the fundraising] business.”
Link: http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/a_shot_at_the_second_amendment/