This is a Cato special podcast. I'm Caleb Brown. The Supreme Court has ruled in the case of Heller v District of Columbia.

The High Court says the Second Amendment enshrines an individual right and has struck down the DC gun ban.

Beyond that, however, the High Court makes clear this isn't the last word on just what restrictions

on gun ownership count as reasonable.

Roger Pala, the Cato Institute's Vice President for Legal Affairs,

comments on the court's ruling.

We finally have a definitive statement about what the Second Amendment means.

The Second Amendment was part of the Bill of Rights that was ratified in 1791.

The Supreme Court has never spoken definitively about the fundamental question that

has been in play ever since, namely whether it guarantees an individual right to keep and bear

arms or simply a right in virtue of you being a

member of the militia. Today the Supreme Court made that very clear it is an

individual right it is not simply a right that belongs to you only because you're a member of a militia.

Now Scalia's opinion apparently stops short of getting into any type of description about what might constitute reasonable restrictions on the Second Amendment rights.

That's right. There were two main conclusions to come out of the majority's opinion today. Number one, that it is an

individual right and number two that the district's almost total ban on

handguns is unconstitutional. In other words, the court said there are

restrictions that will be permitted under the Second Amendment, but this is not

one of them.

What of the incorporation issue?

How should states and localities be thinking about this ruling?

This case did not involve incorporation of the Bill of Rights against the states.

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