HUGE Victory for Gun Rights

"The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has held that the Second Amendment does protect an individual right to bear arms. In the case, U.S. v. Emerson, the court reinstated the indictment of Timothy Joe Emerson, the husband in a Texas divorce case, who was under a restraining order not to own firearms.

But while the court held that the order was not a violation of the Second Amendment, it clearly rejected the notion that the Second Amendment is a 'collective right': "'We reject the collective rights and sophisticated collective rights models for interpreting the Second Amendment.

We hold, consistent with Miller, that it protects the right of individuals, including those not then actually a member of any militia or engaged in active military service or training, to privately possess and bear their own firearms, such as the pistol involved here, that are suitable as personal, individual weapons and are not of the general kind or type excluded by Miller.'

"Miller refers to the 1939 U.S. Supreme Court case of U.S. v. Miller, which held that possession of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' is not protected by the Second Amendment because it lacks a 'reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.'"