A right restored.(THE LAW)(right to bear arms)

THE Supreme Court struck down the District of Columbia's strict ban on handguns as a violation of the Second Amendment. That amendment, protecting "the right of the people to keep and bear arms," has been one of the two provisions in the Bill of Rights that the Court has done nothing to enforce. (The other is the restriction on quartering soldiers in private residences without the owner's consent, which does not have to be enforced because it is not violated.) The Court's decision ends this anomaly and restores common sense to the interpretation of the amendment.

Liberals maintain that the amendment's meaning is elusive because it includes the prefatory words "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State ..." They say, further, that the Court has just read these words out of the amendment in a piece of judicial activism from the right. They are mistaken. The disputed words explain why the right to own guns is important, but do not limit the right. They are there to instruct the citizenry, not to determine judicial decisions. In a like ...