Sebastian notes the five SCOTUS justices who seem to most strongly support us in the questioning, notes who appointed them, and writes:

This should give you all some idea of the importance of elections. Where do you think we’d be on the Heller case if Al Gore or John Kerry had won in 2000 and 2004 respectively?

This is another reason why I don’t buy the “real Conservatives won’t vote for McCain” reasoning.

Heller is the First Case, not the Last

Agreed.

Of course, everyone has tons of links. I’ve been busy and unable to follow things as closely as I should be, but here are a few.

Instapundit, including:

LOS ANGELES TIMES: U.S. Supreme Court seems poised to strike down D.C. handgun ban. I certainly hope so, though GOP partisans might prefer that it went the other way, since that would make a McCain presidency much more likely.

Index to SCOTUSblog’s Heller Coverage

Heller Thoughts, NRA Statement on Heller and a big collection of Heller Links at Say Uncle.

Guns and Gay Sex: Some Notes on Firearms, the Second Amendment, and ‘Reasonable Regulation’ by Glen Reynolds.

Gun-Rights Showdown in the Wall Street Journal.

Fighting for our right to bear arms in the Boston Globe.

Plus a Special Podcast: More Heller coverage and DC vs. Heller through other eyes by Caleb.

Robert Novak writes that by departing from the presidential administration’s official position, Cheney is faithfully reflecting the views of President Bush:

The government position filed with the Supreme Court by U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement stunned gun advocates by opposing the breadth of an appellate court’s affirmation of individual ownership rights. The Justice Department, not the vice president, is out of order. But if Bush agrees with Cheney, why did the president not simply order Clement to revise his brief? The answers: disorganization and weakness in the eighth year of his presidency.

Though the administration is clearly disorganized and relatively weak these days, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Bush is nearly as pro-individual right or anti-gun control as Novak seems to think. I also won’t disagree that the State Department has basically run amok and that they aren’t lining up with Bush’s policies, because that’s also quite obvious on a wide range of issues, but, again, this doesn’t mean that Bush is as gun-friendly as Novak claims.

Remember, this is the same president who said he’d sign a renewal of the federal assault weapons ban if Congress sent it to him.

So while Cheney’s break with the administration’s position wasn’t nearly as dramatic as some liked to pretend, and while Bush probably isn’t nearly as pro-ban as some would have you believe, it’s tough to portray him as an ally against the banners. He seems pretty neutral about it all, and has never really convinced me that he’s interested in my constitutional rights when it comes to guns.

Glenn Reynolds has a number of gun links up.

UPDATE: And more here about an empty holster protest at the University of Colorado.

Cheney Joins Congress In Opposing D.C. Gun Ban

Vice President Cheney signed on to a brief filed by a majority of Congress yesterday that urged the Supreme Court to uphold a ruling that the District of Columbia’s handgun ban is unconstitutional, breaking with his own administration’s official position.

Cheney joined 55 senators and 250 House members in asking the court to find that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess firearms and to uphold a lower court’s ruling that the D.C. ban violates that right. That position is at odds with the one put forward by the administration, which angered gun rights advocates when it suggested that the justices return the case to lower courts for further review.

Via GunPro.net.

The Year of the Gun: Second Amendment Rights and the Supreme Court
Written by Profs Glenn Harlan Reynolds & Brannon P. Denning

About Heller:

It involves the scope of a right that many Americans regard as highly important, but that has not been signifi­cantly addressed by the Supreme Court before, and it does so in an unusually open national election year, with no incumbent or obvious successor running for president.

This is going to be a watershed year for guns rights, and though I’m optimistic I’m not overly so. This is surprisingly new ground, and things are quite unpredictable. As much as we hope things are going to turn out well (right) we cannot dismiss the possibility that they may go the other way.

The District of Columbia gun ban under question is so draco­nian that it can plausibly stand only if the Court finds no individual right to arms at all.

This is the key point. And on this point far more harm can be done than good. The ban can be struck down on a number of issues in a number of ways, but if it stands (however unlikely and unjust we believe that possibility to be) it will be a gigantic victory for those claiming that the Second Amendment refers to a collective right. And, of course, if that’s the case, we are in for a world of trouble.

In the conclusion:

Arguably, gun-rights supporters have much more at stake in Heller than their opponents. The Court’s adoption of the individual-rights reading may be little more than symbolic; if not, it may take years before the Court deigns to clarify its decision. But a rejection of their position would virtually repeal the Amendment, perhaps emboldening gun-control proponents whose initia­tives were often stymied by legislators’ invocation of the Second Amendment.

Go read the whole thing.

I’m no legal expert (to say the least) and I don’t mean to sound pessimistic. I’m not. Just don’t ignore the fact that though the potential gains for gun owners are big, the potential losses (however unlikely we think a loss might be) are HUGE.

Here is an example of how misleading statements live on, even when pointed out. Early last month I pointed out a column by Lee Gaillard where I said he must either be a liar or a moron (technically he could be both, I guess…) over his statements in his The Second Amendment is obsolete piece which I noticed in the Star-Telegram of Fort Worth and Arlington, Texas.

Here’s Mr. Gaillard’s misleading statement:

…there’s a huge difference between sporting rifles and high-cyclic-rate-of-fire weapons designed to suppress enemy defenses during military assaults — in the process disabling or killing as many human beings as possible. Despite Congress’ failure to renew the assault weapons ban, there is no justification for civilians to possess machine pistols or automatic rifles. [emphasis Murdoc's]

And I recapped:

1. The Assault Weapons Ban didn’t ban machine pistols or automatic rifles
2. The sunset of the AWB didn’t make machine pistols or automatic rifles legal
3. Machine pistols and automatic rifles have been illegal (except in a few specific circumstances) for decades
4. The DC case, the AWB, and the NRA’s lobbying all have absolutely ZERO to do with machine pistols and automatic rilfes

The next day, to its credit, the Star-Telegram posted this:

CLARIFICATION
Star-Telegram
The assault weapons ban did not cover fully automatic firearms, which fall under other laws. Terminology in a Tuesday guest column by Lee Gaillard should have been more accurate.

My guess is that, of course, about 1% of the people who read the column saw the correction, but that’s how such things go. Big lies first, then little unnoticed “clarifications” after the damage has been done. I didn’t see this clarification until I searched for Gaillard’s column today. The column is unavailable online, probably simply due to it expiring. Nice how new can just “vanish.” (That won’t happen on GunPundit, incidentally. Posts are permanent.) However, thanks to the wonder of Google’s cache, I found it anyway. It’s currently here, though I don’t know for how long.

Anyway, the same column appeared today in the Seattle Times under the title Public safety trumps outdated, irrelevant Second Amendment. Interestingly, the term “automatic rifle” has been replaced by “semiautomatic rifle.” Other than a few minor changes that don’t affect any points, the rest of the column is identical to the one I linked to earlier.

This is something, as someone (maybe Mr. Gaillard, maybe editors somewhere) decided that correcting the error about automatic rifles was required but that fixing the error about machine pistols was not. Machine pistols are, by definition, fully automatic weapons. As such, they were not regulated by the AWB and have been illegal for citizens to own for decades.

The way Gaillard’s column reads now, one would think that machine pistols are legal today and that semiautomatic rifles are military arms. These are both incorrect points. Gaillard now says

…there’s a huge difference between sporting rifles and high-cyclic-rate-of-fire weapons designed to suppress enemy defenses during military assaults — in the process disabling or killing as many human beings as possible. Despite Congress’ failure to renew the assault-weapons ban, there is no justification for civilians to possess machine pistols or semiautomatic rifles.

Many “sporting rifles” are semiautomatic, and no semiautomatic rifle is a “high-cyclic-rate-of-fire weapon designed to suppress enemy defenses during military assaults.” Yet Gaillard makes a direct connection in addition to continuing to claim that machine pistols were banned by the AWB.

Why is it that he can’t just make his point without trying to mislead everyone? Maybe because his point is based on those misleading statemtents?

I wonder what Mr. Gaillard’s lie will look like when next it lands in the op-ed pages.

UPDATE: I just sent this message to the editor or the Seattle Times’ op-ed pages:

Hello: I’d like to take issue with some seriously misleading information in the Lee Gaillard column “Public safety trumps outdated, irrelevant Second Amendment.”

Here is the section I’m referring to:

>>>On the other hand, there’s a huge difference between sporting rifles and high-cyclic-rate-of-fire weapons designed to suppress enemy defenses during military assaults — in the process disabling or killing as many human beings as possible. Despite Congress’ failure to renew the assault-weapons ban, there is no justification for civilians to possess machine pistols or semiautomatic rifles.<<<

As you may be aware, this column was published previously with the term "automatic rifles" used instead of "semiautomatic rifles." The Fort-Worth Star-Telegraph published a "clarification" (http://www.star-telegram.com/corrections/story/344692.html) after publishing Mr. Gaillard's column early last month.

"Machine pistols" are also, by definition, automatic weapons. As such, they were not regulated by the AWB and have been illegal for citizens to own for decades.

Also, the way the paragraph now reads, it sounds as if semiautomatic rifles are "high-cyclic-rate-of-fire" military weapons. They aren't. In fact, a large percentage of sporting rifles are semiautomatic.

Why someone would go to the trouble of correcting one mistake about "automatic rifles" but ignoring another about "machine pistols" is beyond me. Especially when the partial correction just replaces one misleading statement with another.

It's almost as if someone was lying to make a point.

2007 Business Review — Guns

Jayson Javitz:

It goes without saying how “Machine Gun Sammy” Alito will vote. The same holds true for Justices Thomas, Roberts and Scalia. We also know in advance how the four liberal Justices will vote.

That leaves Reagan-nominated Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.

Two or three times per session Justice Kennedy on major cases inexplicably will vote to the left. So, it’s not wise to count our chickens before they’re shot.

A couple of commenters note that they’re not convinced that Ginsburg will support the ban.

Tell me this isn’t news:

Former D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey is shifting his position on Washington’s 31-year ban on handgun ownership as the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments on the issue.

Ramsey says there needs to be reasonable control over guns, but he says handgun registration can provide that control.

I should qualify that “tell me this isn’t news” comment a bit. It might be newsworthy, but I doubt we’ll be seeing much about it in the actual news. This doesn’t fit the profile.

You can bet that if it were a former pro-gun lobbyist changing his tune to embrace the gun ban, it would be plastered all over the place. Like when former military officers and soldiers speak out against the military campaign in Iraq. Headline city.

Ramsey will be taking over the top slot in the Philadelphia Police Department next month.

I found this direct quote at WTOP News:

“If we’re going to outlaw something then certainly your assault weapons and more dangerous weapons ought to be totally banned.”

He can’t mean assault rifles, of course, because they are already banned nationwide. And the “more dangerous guns” part is confusing. Define “more dangerous”. Is that based on caliber? Does that mean your .30-06 deer rifle should be banned?

It would be interesting to know exactly what Ramsey meant.