The Heller case overturned Washington, D.C. bans. It precludes the federal government outlawing guns or just handguns. But the case left an open question whether the right to arms applies against state and local governments.

Gun groups are working hard to get the courts to invalidate local laws. The NRA and the Second Amendment Foundation are jointly funding a suit I have filed (working with Chuck Michel, a California gun lawyer) against the San Francisco Housing Authority, which bans guns to its residents.

The NRA is also financing me to work with another California gun lawyer, Donald Kilmer, on a federal court appeal against the Alameda County gun show ban. SAF and Alan Gura, the lawyer who won the Heller case, have a suit against Chicago's handgun ban and the NRA has funded its Second Amendment expert, Steve Halbrook, to bring a case against the Evanston, Illinois handgun ban.

The case will have other effects as well. We can expect that public defenders, many of whom loathe guns, are going to be bringing cases claiming that their rapist, robber and murderer clients have a right to carry guns (at least up to the moment they attack their next victim). And while anti-gun judges will probably reject such claims, they are going to lard their opinions with comments to the effect that guns for felons is the logical implication of Heller.

This is an issue of great importance. In the 1910s and 1920s the NRA pioneered laws against felons owning guns. If we were now to claim that felons have a right to arms, that could persuade one or more of five majority votes in Heller to turn against us.

The Heller majority opinion says laws against convicted criminals possessing firearms are valid. And this is correct for two related reasons: 1) the right to arms has always been understood to apply only to virtuous citizens, and felons are the opposite of that; 2) the common law which the Founders knew deemed felons "civilly dead," i.e. they had no rights at all.

There is an argument that today many trivial nonviolent acts are felonies and conviction of such a felony does not justify depriving someone of the right to arms. I am sympathetic to that issue, but we should avoid raising it for political reasons.

Sarah Brady would issue press releases screaming, "gun loons say Charles Manson has a right to possess and carry guns." And the overwhelmingly anti-gun media would print articles to that effect. Nor would it matter that we were not saying serious felons have gun rights, that we were only saying people convicted of trivial, nonviolent felonies have a right to arms. Try telling the media that and see if it gets you a retraction or clarification.

And for those who believe Heller will pave the way to easier concealed carry, I would point out that the Second Amendment guarantees a right to "bear arms." But carrying guns was not involved in Heller, only the right to possess them in the home.

Concealed weapon bans traditionally were justified on the ground that the right is only to bear arms openly. That explanation, which appeared only in the 19th century, may be wrong. Thomas Jefferson and many other 18th century Americans allegedly did carry concealed handguns. But laws against the carrying of concealed handguns seem unlikely to fall anytime soon.

In sum, the Heller decision has had and will have a great impact. But so far it is limited to precluding federal laws. It may well be extended to strike down state and local laws, but that will only occur through future cases--and court cases are slow. Moreover, it will only invalidate very extreme guns bans like those in Washington, D.C.