For those in the extremist gun lobby and the libertarian right who view the Supreme Court’s recent Second Amendment rulings as assault weapons ready to blow holes in America’s gun laws, the Seventh Circuit’s ruling this week in U.S. v. Skoien must be a bitter pill.

Skoien is no doubt the most significant lower court ruling on the Second Amendment since the Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller two years ago recognizing the right of individuals to have guns in the home for self-defense. The Seventh Circuit heard the case en banc (i.e. with all eleven judges sitting) and, by a vote of 10-1, upheld the conviction of Steven Skoien for violating the federal law barring possession of guns by individuals with misdemeanor convictions for domestic violence. Skoien, like many other convicted gun criminals, saw Heller as a way to avoid punishment by seeking to strike down as unconstitutional the law he had violated.

The Skoien ruling is a bucket of cold water thrown on the “gun rights” celebration following the Supreme Court’s decision last month in McDonald v. City of Chicago striking down Chicago’s handgun ban.

First, because appeals courts rarely sit en banc, seldom do they rule by such lopsided majorities. In sports terms, this one was a rout. More importantly, the 10-judge majority reflected the full sweep of the ideological spectrum. The majority opinion was written by Judge Frank Easterbrook, a leading conservative jurist and intellectual, and joined by six judges appointed by Republican Presidents and three appointed by Democratic Presidents.

Second, the restriction on gun ownership under attack in this case was not among those specifically blessed by the Heller majority as “presumptively legal,” even under Heller’s newly-discovered right to guns for self-defense. Whereas Heller had said “nothing in our opinion should cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession firearms by felons and the mentally ill” (among other “presumptively lawful” restrictions), it said nothing about misdemeanor domestic violence offenses. Significantly, Judge Easterbrook’s opinion reads the Heller language not as created a “comprehensive code” of permissible regulations, but rather as standing for the broader proposition that it remains proper to bar gun possession by some categories of persons, “leaving it to the people’s elected representatives the filling in of details.” Since the core of state and federal gun regulation has long been directed to keeping guns out of the hands of defined categories of dangerous people, this degree of legislative leeway promises to make gun control largely safe from successful constitutional attack. For example, it suggests that reasonable ways of enforcing these categorical prohibitions (like extending Brady Law background checks to private shows at gun shows and elsewhere) remain unthreatened by the new Heller right.

Third, the Seventh Circuit rejected any suggestion that Heller’s reference to the presumptive legality of “longstanding” restrictions means that only those restrictions on the books in 1791 are currently permissible. After all, as the Circuit Court pointed out, even the “presumptively legal” prohibition on possession of guns by felons was not passed by Congress until 1938. Judge Easterbrook might also have added that it would be incongruous to allow as constitutionally permitted only the laws in place at the founding, when the Heller Court made handguns constitutionally protected because they are commonly owned for self-defense at the present time. That was not the case back in 1791.

Finally, for the court in Skoien, the constitutional test was not historical in nature, but rather was whether the statute at issue is “substantially related” to its objective of “preventing armed mayhem.” The court had no trouble concluding that “both logic and data” demonstrate the lifesaving importance of barring domestic abusers from having guns. The court cited studies showing that domestic assaults with guns are far more lethal than assaults with other weapons, that guns in the home increase the risk of homicide, and that guns in the homes of domestic abusers are particularly a threat to police responding to domestic violence calls.

The Seventh Circuit’s approach suggests that Second Amendment challenges will end up showcasing the impressive research, particularly by the public health community, documenting the devastating toll of gun violence on families and communities, as well as the importance of strong gun laws to public health and safety. Showcasing the importance of gun laws is not exact what the “gun rights” folks had in mind when they were celebrating the Heller decision two years ago.

It is easy to understand why libertarian bloggers like Josh Blackman are upset about the Skoien ruling, which he cites as evidence of the “epic failure” of both Heller and McDonald to truly establish a constitutional basis for the gutting of America’s gun laws. Blackman frets that Judge Easterbrook’s opinion in Skoien sets forth “a framework that will likely be relied upon by most courts.” If he’s right, and I think he is, strong gun control laws have little to fear from the Second Amendment.

For more information, see Dennis Henigan’s Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths that Paralyze American Gun Policy (Potomac Books 2009)

Listen carefully to the members of the gun lobby, in particular, Wayne LaPierre, the head of the NRA. Listen carefully not just to what is said, but what isn’t. If you listen, you’ll hear that even after the landmark Heller and McDonald decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court that gave individuals across the country a right to have a gun in the home for self-defense, the gun lobby still isn’t happy.

While Heller and McDonald have taken the extremes in the gun debate off the table, and given us the opportunity to decide what kind of gun restrictions make sense in our communities, that’s not the way Wayne LaPierre wants to proceed. In a debate with me on PBS’s News Hour the day the McDonald ruling came down, LaPierre rejected every opportunity given to him to accept, or even discuss, reasonable, commonsense gun regulations that this country does and should have.

When PBS Anchor and Moderator Gwen Ifill suggested that more lawsuits were going to follow the June 28 McDonald decision, which applied the 2008 Heller definition of the Second Amendment to states and localities, LaPierre replied, “We’re going to have to fight to make sure this constitutional victory isn’t transformed into a practical defeat.” When Ifill followed up later and asked, “Is there any acceptable limitation on guns?” LaPierre answered, “Let me tell you what we ought to do…. every time a drug dealer, gang member, or violent felon touches a gun, there’s 100 percent prosecution…”

When I said that I also believed violent felons ought to be prosecuted fully, but that it makes sense to try to prevent dangerous people from getting dangerous weapons in the first place, LaPierre responded by changing the subject.

His intent, and the intent of the gun lobby, is clear. They are going to fight for their vision of anybody being able to have any gun anywhere in America, all the time. And I believe the courts will continue to reject that vision and endorse sensible restrictions, short of complete handgun bans, that save American lives.

As I reminded News Hour viewers, Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the Court’s 5-4 McDonald decision, “repeated the language from Heller that said you can have restrictions on who gets guns, where they take the guns, how guns are sold, how guns are carried, and even how they are stored.”

Specifically, in Heller, Justice Antonin Scalia affirmed that “the 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, are presumptively lawful.”

What’s more, the 260-plus rulings on challenges to gun laws by lower courts in the two years since Heller give me confidence that the McDonald decision will not undo the few strong gun laws we have on the books.

While Wayne LaPierre and others are already supporting new lawsuits challenging state and local guns laws since the McDonald ruling, let me explain why I think these will fail by giving you hypothetical scenarios of challenges that we believe don’t stand a chance, based on these recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions and the lower court rulings.

· A Virginia Tech student files suit against the university’s policy prohibiting concealed weapons on campus. Will the McDonald decision have an impact?
We believe the answer is “no,” because as a school, a college campus is one of those “sensitive places” that Justice Scalia cited as being allowed to enact gun prohibitions.

· A farmer in Kern County, California files suit against California for prohibiting him from purchasing an AR-15 rifle with a folding stock and scope, which he wants to have for coyote control on his land. How does McDonald relate to this case?

· Justice Scalia also noted that laws protecting Americans from “dangerous and unusual weapons” are “presumptively lawful.” An AR-15 is a military-style, assault weapon, which elected officials in California have decided is so “dangerous” that they have banned it.

· John Hinckley, Jr., who was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the shootings of President Ronald Reagan and Jim Brady, has been approved for extended visits to family away from a D.C. institution for the mentally ill. If he files suit against the federal government for rescinding his gun rights, does McDonald give him a legitimate case?

Again, the answer is “no.” The Brady Law specifically prohibits the dangerously mentally ill from being able to buy or own guns, and Justice Scalia alluded to this prohibition in the Heller ruling.

· Brian Borgelt, the former owner of Bull’s Eye Shooter Supply in Tacoma, Washington, which “lost” the gun used by the snipers who murdered 10 and shot three others in the Washington, D.C. area in 2002, files suit against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for rescinding his federal firearm dealer license. Does the McDonald decision provide support for Borgelt’s case?

Absolutely not. The McDonald decision is limited to the right to own a gun in the home and both Scalia in Heller and Alito in McDonald affirmed that federal, state and local governments can put conditions on the sale of firearms.

I encourage those of you who want to help us ensure a safer America — one where not every gun can be wielded by anybody, anywhere, any time — to join the Brady Center and Brady Campaign to fight these new challenges.

If you’re the DC-area, please come out to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee session on closing the gun show loophole that will take place Wednesday, July 14, at 2 PM in Room 2141 of the Rayburn House Office Building. It’s one of many efforts we’re pushing to make sure that our communities — your communities — are as safe as possible from gun violence.

There have been lots of editorials on Monday’s Supreme Court decision in McDonald v. City of Chicago.  The Court applied the Second Amendment to states and localities, and reaffirmed its language in District of Columbia v. Heller that the right is not unlimited.  Read excerpts from a few of the editorials out there:

From yesterday’s Charlotte Observer:

Actually, the even bigger question is this: How do we reduce gun violence? That is a goal that advocates on both extremes and citizens in the middle should embrace. Many tens of thousands of Americans are injured or killed by gunfire each year. If people have a right to own guns, they also have a right not to be endangered by others, and cities and states have a duty to protect their residents from gun violence.

That means no guns for felons or the mentally ill. It means strict background checks, registration and waiting periods. It means regulating dealers. It means better enforcing the laws already on the books.

(Read full editorial here.)

From Tuesday’s New York Times:

While the court has now twice attacked complete bans on handgun ownership, the decision left plenty of room for restrictions on who can buy and sell arms.

The court acknowledged, as it did in the District of Columbia case, that the amendment did not confer “a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” It cited a few examples of what it considered acceptable: limits on gun ownership by felons or the mentally ill, bans on carrying firearms in sensitive places like schools or government buildings and conditions on gun sales.

Mayors and state lawmakers will have to use all of that room and keep adopting the most restrictive possible gun laws — to protect the lives of Americans and aid the work of law enforcement officials. They should continue to impose background checks, limit bulk gun purchases, regulate dealers, close gun-show loopholes.

(Read full editorial here.)

From Wednesday’s Baltimore Sun:

Samuel A. Alito Jr. noted that the right to bear arms is not a “right to carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever for whatever purpose.” And he specifically endorses existing restrictions on bringing guns to schools or government buildings and banning ownership by felons and the mentally ill.

In that light, it’s difficult to see how the various restrictions that have been debated in recent years — requiring background checks for all guns purchases, for instance, or repealing a Bush era rule that allows people to carry concealed, loaded weapons into a national park — would run afoul of the court’s interpretation of the Second Amendment.

(Read full editorial here.)

And from Tuesday’s USA Today:

Just as they did in their 2008 decision, the court’s 5-4 majority wisely left the door open for state and local governments to regulate how people buy, keep and use guns…. That’s all appropriate, and it puts the court squarely where the nation seems to have come out after debating this issue for decades — for a right to gun ownership, but not such a radically unlimited one that it would undo existing restrictions on machine guns, for example.

It also leaves the way open for Congress to adopt long overdue restrictions that would leave legitimate gun owners largely alone while helping to reduce the annual carnage from guns that fall into the wrong hands. Useful measures would include those that:

•Crack down aggressively on rogue gun dealers who hide behind a legal facade while knowingly supplying guns to criminals.

•Tighten rules on gun shows to make sure there’s no loophole to allow some buyers to evade background checks.

•Target the sort of high-powered, high-capacity weapons that have been legal since the assault weapons ban lapsed.

It’s notable that a conservative court with a strong pro-gun rights majority left so much room for common-sense restrictions on dangerous weapons.

(Read full editorial here.)

The Supreme Court will be issuing its opinion for the Second Amendment case, McDonald v. City of Chicago, on Monday, according to SCOTUS Blog:

…There are still four undecided cases this term: Free Enterprise Fund, Bilski, Christian Legal Society, and McDonald v. Chicago… The Chief Justice has just announced that the Court will have its final opinions on Monday (the 28th) and that will close the Term, with the exception of any remaining orders in pending cases.

The Chicago case will determine whether the Second Amendment applies to state and local laws. The 2008 Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller found that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess handguns for use in self-defense in a person’s home, but did not apply this ruling to the states. The Court did stress, however, that this right “is not unlimited.”

Click here to learn more about the Chicago case and the Brady Center’s brief, and here to learn more about the Second Amendment and common sense gun laws.

And, of course, check back on Monday for updates.

Professors Philip J. Cook and Jens Ludwig co-authored an article in yesterday’s Washington Post debunking five ridiculous myths that have been perpetrated about gun control:

1. Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.

2. Gun laws affect only law-abiding citizens.

3. When more households have guns for self-defense, crime goes down.

4. In high-crime urban neighborhoods, guns are as easy to get as fast food.

5. Repealing Chicago’s handgun ban will dramatically increase gun crimes.

(Read about each myth in detail in the full article.)

This article comes as the Supreme Court considers the constitutionality of Chicago’s gun ban and the professors weigh-in, urging the Justice to come up with a decision that “leaves the door open for sensible control measures.”  We agree.

(Also note, Brady Center Vice President Dennis Henigan wrote a book last year on the topic of gun control myths.)