Word: guns
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...Gun-control advocates say the ruling's focus on gun bans safeguards reasonable gun restrictions from the flurry of litigation it will undoubtedly trigger. "The Court's decision indicated regulation of guns, as opposed to the banning of handguns, is entirely permissible," says Dennis Henigan, vice president for law and policy at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. "The ruling gives a constitutional green light to a wide range of gun restrictions." Scalia said the Court's decision "should not be taken to cast doubt" on many existing restrictions against gun possession, including handgun possession by felons...
Even if federal gun laws remain intact, gun-rights activists will likely invoke the Court's ruling at local and state levels. Mark Tushnet, a constitutional law professor at Harvard Law School, says he anticipates a "period of uncertainty" as lower courts wrestle with whether the ruling can be applied to their jurisdictions. Ultimately, he says, "the answer is going to be yes, but it's going to take one big case or a series of smaller ones to establish." Randy Barnett, a professor of legal theory at Georgetown University Law Center, notes that while Scalia's opinion "telegraphs...
When the Supreme Court issues rulings on hot-button issues like gun control and the death penalty in the middle of a presidential campaign, Republicans could be excused for thinking they'll have the perfect opportunity to paint their Democratic opponent as an out-of-touch social liberal. But while Barack Obama may be ranked as one of the Senate's most liberal members, his reactions to this week's controversial court decisions showed yet again how he is carefully moving to the center ahead of the fall campaign...
...John McCain's camp wasted no time in attacking, with one surrogate, conservative Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, calling Obama's gun control statement "incredible flip-flopping." McCain advisor Randy Scheunemann was even tougher in a conference call Thursday. "What's becoming clear in this campaign," Scheunemann said, is "that for Senator Obama the most important issue in the election is the political fortunes of Senator Obama. He has demonstrated that there really is no position he holds that isn't negotiable or isn't subject to change depending on how he calculates it will affect his political fortunes...
...highlight in the general election campaign on foreign policy and national security, social issues and economics. His position on the child rape death penalty case, for example, is in line with his record in Illinois of supporting the death penalty. He is on less solid ground on the gun ban as his campaign said during the primary that he believed the D.C. law was constitutional...