Heller yes (Updated, with more stupidity!)

So, the Supreme Court has overturned the ban on handguns in the District of Columbia. I’ll update later with more thoughts (read: I’ll let experts deconstruct the ruling and then link to them), but I would like to point to one especial case of stupidity…that’s right, I’m linking to Matthew Yglesias!

I also doubt that conservatives will be too upset by the “judicial activism” involved in the Supreme Court overturning the DC handgun ban.

Uh huh. I imagine Yglesias thinks conservatives should be upset if, say, the court overturned a law by the state of Virginia written to say that the right of free speech is a collective right that applied only to the press, and not to individuals. Or that the right to vote must be tempered with a literacy test. Or…well, you get my point. Federalism doesn’t really apply when you’re talking about a massive abuse of people’s rights by the local/state government. The Supreme Court upheld a fundamental civil liberty. You’d think liberals would be pleased. Obviously, you’d be wrong.

Update: Dahlia Lithwick, over at Slate:

I must first pass along this rather brilliant observation from professor Stephen Wermiel from American University, who wonders why none of the dissenters cautioned the majority that today’s decision “will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.”

Well, perhaps none of them pursued that line of argument because, well: it’s not true. Curbing legal ownership of guns in DC has done little to curb violent crime rates, which remain higher than NYC, Chicago, and Philly. Furthermore, the people who will be killed as a result of allowing citizens to have guns in their homes? Criminals breaking into homes with the intent to steal/do violence to law abiding citizens. Probably not a good idea to base your argument around the idea that it’s okay to let criminals have their way with Joe Q. Citizen.