Yep.
SCOTUS, in Heller, stated that the Heller decision did not "cast doubt" upon some existing regulations. The courts seem to liberally reinterpret that to be analogous to "the Heller decision supports existing regulations."
Quite the stretch if you ask me.
Forgive me, any time I see someone talk about this part of the
Heller decision, I always try to fill in the extremely important blanks.
Here is the full quote:
"Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.26"
Note the all-important footnote, 26, which states:
"26 We identify these
presumptively lawful regulatory measures only as examples; our list does not purport to be exhaustive."
What this means is that not only did
Heller not state that these prohibitions pass constitutional muster, but they explicitly stated (by using the word "presumptively") that they did
not even
consider the matter.
At all!
As is almost always the case in complex court cases, only the issues at the very core of the matter are considered. This nearly universally misunderstood part of Heller is the fictitious "gas" that the anti-gun crowd is running on, but unfortunately, what many of the lower anti-gun courts are also basing their flawed opinions on as well.
I want to know how long before these horribly incorrect opinions make their way back up to the SCOTUS for some serious slap-downs.
TFred