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by adamsea 3293 days ago
May be relevant - from the ACLU website:

"In striking down Washington D.C.'s handgun ban by a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court's decision in D.C. v. Heller held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms, whether or not associated with a state militia. The ACLU disagrees with the Supreme Court's conclusion about the nature of the right protected by the Second Amendment. However, particular federal or state laws on licensing, registration, prohibition, or other regulation of the manufacture, shipment, sale, purchase or possession of guns may raise civil liberties questions."

https://www.aclu.org/other/second-amendment

1 comments

Yeah, that's what I was thinking of with individual versus collective rights. The final sentence is a nice acknowledgement of the collective right, but as far as I can tell the (national) ACLU has never taken a rights-expanding stance on a specific gun issue. (Some state orgs may have.)

In practice, they don't advocate for Second Amendment protection. That's not necessarily a bad thing, I think it would destroy their effectiveness elsewhere without achieving much, but their acknowledgement of the right hasn't involved them actually getting involved with legal cases so far.