Gun rights proponents saw the ruling as an opportunity to overturn practically every gun restriction in the book. There have since been sixty challenges to various and sundry gun restrictions brought to federal courts in the past five months. And surprisingly, as UCLA Law Professor Adam Winkler sums up:
There have been suits against laws banning possession of firearms by felons, drug addicts, illegal aliens, and individuals convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors. The courts have ruled on the constitutionality of laws prohibiting particular types of weapons, including sawed-off shotguns and machine guns, and specific weapons attachments. Defendants have challenged laws barring guns in school zones and post offices, and laws outlawing "straw" purchases, the carrying of concealed weapons, possession of an unregistered firearm, and particular types of ammunition. The courts have upheld every one of these laws.
You can read Winkler's article here.
Winkler points out that the basis for these rulings is contained in the July decision. To whit,
The basis for most of these lower court rulings upholding gun control is a paragraph near the end of the Supreme Court's decision that, at the time, seemed like a throwaway. The Supreme Court wrote that "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 on the commercial sale of arms."
As it turns out, just about all the state and local gun restriction laws fit into one or more of these categories. What seemed at the time a potentially momentous ruling has instead not changed much at all. After losing sixty straight cases, gun rights advocates have got to be pretty disappointed with how this is turning out.
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