More Gun Regulation Is Inevitable

[flamin lib]

3. Try this link:

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-04-26/more-gun-regulation-is-inevitable

Heller simply hasn't been a big impediment to gun regulation. A series of Supreme Court moves after Heller made it clear that Scalia's majority found much regulation perfectly acceptable. And there was never any risk of the court adopting the gun movement's more exotic premises, such as the notion that gun rights are "God-given," a view handed down by National Rifle Association leader Wayne LaPierre in his colorful sermons.

Yet Heller could end up being overturned anyway. Strategic litigation is commonplace in the U.S. If gun-regulation activists don't pursue it, others outside the fold could. The Heller suit itself was advanced over the resistance of the NRA, which feared the Supreme Court would use it to affirm that gun rights are indeed attached to militia duty.
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Successful nations eventually figure out ways to stop underwriting failure. The U.S. may continue to allow 100,000 citizens to be killed or injured each year by guns. But not forever. Sooner or later, an increasingly cosmopolitan U.S. will free itself from the extreme gun-rights movement, and the inertia of mass death. A change might be instigated by politicians. It might be instigated by judges. Heller could be the basis of increased gun regulation, or it could be swept aside in favor of a more restrictive ruling. Either is possible. And given the extravagant tragedy of the status quo, either is more likely than no change at all.