McDonald Decision: It's Not Just About Guns Anymore

Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, thinks that Tea Party activists, libertarians, and conservatives should look to the Supreme Court's decision in McDonald v. Chicago as inspiration.

let me offer a positive lesson from this experience, one with relevance for today's motivated Tea Party activists and depressed conservatives and libertarians alike. Because the story of the Second Amendment, and of gun rights generally, over the past two decades is a story that offers hope for those interested in protecting and restoring liberty in all sorts of areas.

Read the whole article here.

His conclusion -

So in little more than 15 years, we've seen an amazing turnaround on an issue where the "establishment" side had broad support from politicians (in both parties, really) and almost universal support from the media. Gun control now is nearly dead as an issue, and the "establishment" view that the Second Amendment didn't protect any sort of individual right, but merely a right of states to have national guards, did not get the support of a single Supreme Court justice.

So what's the lesson for today? It's that activism matters.

Now the issue on which activists differ from the establishment is the size of government. Politicians (in both parties, really) are pretty happy with big government. In this, they have the near-universal support of the media (now using covert e-mail lists to agree on how to slant their stories).

But if people care about shrinking government as much as gun rights activists care about protecting the Second Amendment, then this situation, too, can see a turnaround.

For the sake of the country, it had better.