If the second amendment is to mean anything, the amount of regulation allowed needs to be clearly established. Imagine the first amendment with the same restrictions as the second–Local government gets to decide which newspapers are acceptable in their jurisdictions, news sources must be registered (The founders did not foresee blogs, where individuals have the ability to reach a mass audience without supervision…) and access to out of state news sources must go through a registered in-state news outlet.

An example of “sensible laws” led to the Glock pistols carried by many police to fall under both the “Saturday Night Special” import rules (They have to be modified for import, then the modifications removed in the US) and the “Assault Weapon” rules at the same time. Without “regulation of the regulations” gun rights can and will be regulated to the point where the law abiding can not keep track and follow all the rules. Only those willing to break the law will be able to have guns.

That may or may not be the case here, but no matter what the court decides (and the individual rights view is now generally accepted in the mainstream of American legal thought), there is still going to be plenty of room for reasonable gun regulations. I’ve made this argument numerous times over the last few months in other places, and I don’t feel like repeating them right now, but suffice it to say that most rational gun regulations will remain valid regardless of whether gun ownership is an individual right (which, as I said above, it is except under a very strained view of the Constitution).

Of course, I’ve pointed out before that the economics of gun regulation are such that they’re extremely closely tied to the economics of the Drug War. In other words- if you want to end gun violence, ending the Drug War is the best place to start. Doing so may or may not obviate the rationale for gun regulation, but as long as the Drug War continues in this country, gun regulations really will only affect otherwise law-abiding citizens.