In the second question -- what kinds of regulations will be permitted? -- we may get into some policy questions. Do gun regulations work? What kinds of gun regulations go further than necessary to accomplish the ends that are sought to be accomplished? I think this is going to depend on how rigorously the court intends to review what is passed by legislatures.

Legislatures generally get their way in this country. That’s what democracy is all about. But it’s not an absolute. They can’t, for example, pass a law that says you’re not allowed to practice Catholicism, or you’re not allowed to criticize the governor, or you can’t speak freely. Those kinds of regulations are not permitted.

Our view is that a regulation that says you can’t have any functional firearm in your home is like a regulation that says you can’t speak freely -- it violates an expressed provision in the Bill of Rights. If the courts are fairly rigorous in their review of these regulations, then certainly the D.C. gun ban and probably some other regulations will be invalidated. If the court is just a rubber stamp and generally gives the legislature carte blanche to do whatever it wants, now that’s quite a different story.

Q: If things go the way you’d like them to go, how wide of an impact will the decision have on gun laws around the United States?

A: First, we would consider it a victory to get a two-part decision. The first part is that this is an individual right not limited to militia service and the second part is that the D.C. gun ban is unconstitutional. If we get that two-part decision, then we will have considered it a tremendous victory. Now the court could go further. It could establish what standard of review it would impose on new gun regulations that come before it. This was the issue that I was just talking about: Is it going to be rigorous scrutiny where it requires the government to really justify its regulations or is it going to be a rubber stamp?

Q: So it will scare off a lot of bad legislation?

A: That’s quite possible. We would hope that the court would strictly scrutinize any regulations, because the right to keep and bear arms is part of the Bill of Rights. It’s a fundamental right. It occasionally has life or death significance to be able to defend yourself. And those kinds of rights ought to be rigorously scrutinized when government intends to compromise or truncate the right, just as we do in the case of speech and religion.

But the court may not go that far. It may simply go only so far as to say the D.C. gun ban just can’t pass muster and it is unconstitutional.

As far as implications outside D.C., two things are going to have to happen. One of which is to flesh out this skeleton about which regulations can be permitted and which can not. The second is a question of whether or not the Second Amendment even applies to states. That has not been resolved by the courts. It has been resolved with respect to almost all of the rest of the Bill of Rights. The courts have decided that almost all of the Bill of Rights do apply. If the states violate your right to free speech, religion, press, etc., you can seek federal redress under the U.S. Constitution. But that issue hasn’t been resolved with respect to the Second Amendment and it probably will not be resolved in this case, because D.C. is not a state.

Q: What’s the next big Second Amendment issue you’d like to see the Supreme Court settle in a definitive way?

A: Assuming that we win this case, I think the next big one we’d like to see is what goes under the name of “the incorporation issue.” That is, whether the Second Amendment is “incorporated,” via the 14th Amendment, to apply to the states. You’re likely to see that kind of litigation in a place like Chicago or New York or somewhere where there is really some pretty onerous gun regulations, but it is in a state or local context, not a federal enclave like the District of Colombia.