Having spent some time scanning through the 60 some pages of majority opinion as well as the remaining dissents there is a great opportunity to see the competing ideas of both what the Framers were trying to do in forming our government and two different views of what that governments relationship to the citizens should resemble.
Justice Scalia writing for the majority provides a very valuable lesson not only in the historical perspective on the right to bear arms but the historic expectations of our founders that citizens have a right to self protection.
While all of the Justices at some point agree that the Second Amendment is an individual right, the notion of what that means changes between the majority and the dissents.
The majority opinion believes that there is at some point an absolute right to possession of firearms and by extension handguns, the subject of this particular case to some extent, for the purpose of self defense that was clearly in the mind of the Framers.
There is little disagreement amongst the justices that this fundamental right like all of them can be removed by the state under certain narrow and limited circumstances. Criminals are routinely relieved of their liberty and sometimes their life without a violation of the Constitution.
The majority would find that those people that have proven themselves incapable of living within the boundaries of the law and the Constitution itself can lose the right to possess firearms, such as the case of felons. Those incapable of safely managing their own affairs or understanding the consequences of their actions such as incompetents and mental patients by their status also have a diminished level of protection from government involvement.
The great chasm between the majority and the dissents lies with the creation of an exception that would swallow the right. Justice Breyer probably voices this best in wishing to establish a specific "balancing test" between the individual rights and the needs of the state.
In most instances when this is done the interests of the state almost always swallow the interests of the individual. Justice Breyer is undoubtedly aware of this and by hoping to create such a system he would be essentially handing back the power to have these types of bans,so long as the government can have an artful enough argument.
Justices Stevens and Ginsburg are usually hostile to checks on government power unless it involves stopping the executive from prosecuting a war, but I digress.
They would simply riddle the right with so many exceptions that like a screen on the window, it would no longer be seen.
Just remember, the change of just one Justice and this decision would have went the other way. Think about that as you approach the voting booth this presidential election.
