Ilya Somin points to property rights law and rulings as a basis for reminding those of us who were celebrating this decision that this is absolutely by no means a decisive battle in the right to protect firearm ownership:

Unlike in the case of the Second Amendment right to bear arms, the Supreme Court has always recognized that the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause and other property rights provisions in the Constitution protect individual rights. However, since the 1930s, the Court has defined the scope of these rights so narrowly that they get very little protection in practice. For example, the Court has always held - as it reaffirmed in Kelo v. City of New London - that property cannot be condemned unless the taking is for a "public use." Purely "private" takings are - and always have been - forbidden by the Court. However, the Court defines "public use" to include virtually any conceivable benefit to the public, even ones that might never actually materialize. As a result, the Court still lets government condemn virtually any property for virtually any reason. In theory, there is an individual right here; in practice, not so much.

Similarly, the Court has long recognized that some regulations of property that don't involve physical occupation of land by the government might might still be onerous enough to be considered "takings" requiring "just compensation" under the Fifth Amendment. However, in cases such as Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Commission and Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, the Court decided that such regulations are only presumptively considered takings if they permanently wipe out 100% of the economic value of the property in question. If a regulation wipes out 98% of the value permanently, or %100 of the value for a period of twenty years, the property owner is probably out of luck. In practice, government officials can almost always draft regulations in such a way that their impact is not quite permanent and/or allows the owner to retain some tiny percentage of his land's value. Thus, property owners have little or no real protection against regulatory takings - despite the Supreme Court's recognition of an individual right.

You know that it's very rare that I say "read the whole" thing, that common blogger saying indicating that a post is actually worth dropping what you are doing and reading, so when I say "read the whole damn thing," you know you ought to do that. While I agree with Triton that there ought to be celebration, and there are supporting precedents that may prove useful to gun rights supporters, Somin makes many important points about how the Supreme Court has been able to recognize that a right exists, while using legal mumbo jumbo to effectively wipe out the practical enjoyment of that right. That's part of the reason why I referred to (In)Justice John Paul Stevens with such pure, unadulterated disdain in a previous post. It is amazing that such sophistry is tolerated by society, even while it shows absolutely no mercy for defective thinking and work in industry, but I digress.

Most Americans do not have the slightest clue as to how unfree America actually is because they have never paid attention to the battles that civil liberties groups have fought and lost. They are entirely unaware of the fact that in many practical respects, and I say this with no exaggeration, private property is largely unprotected in our country now. In fact, I daresay that many people who be abjectly horrified if they had any idea how easily, in so many cases of law, the government can simply rip their property away from them with the thinnest of justifications. We have not reached the "just because we want it" stage of the relationship between the state and private property, but it is getting very close. That's why after all of the celebration and hoo-rahs over Heller, I feel like a hung over partier now that I'm brought back down to reality the next day.

The one thing I do know about Heller is that now that the D.C. gun ban is down and out for now, every resident of D.C. that wants a gun should come to Virginia and buy one. Big ones, little ones, scary ones. I recommend a variety of guns for the defense of the home for the man of the house, and maybe one of these for the little lady, and maybe even one of these for any man whose daughter is starting to date. Lock and load before the other gang in blue gets called out to enforce D.C. Gun Ban Part Deux: Every gun must be kept in a 5'x5' block of cement encased in six inches of Titanium.