Don't miss Clayton Cramer's analysis of Nordyke v. King:

You won't find me saying nice things about the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals very often, so savor the moment.

On April 20, Alameda County, California, "won" a gun control case that has many gun owners dancing in the aisles.

King Pyrrhus of Epirus in 280 BC and 279 BC won such costly victories over the Romans. He remarked, "One more such victory and I am lost." And the gun control movement just had such a Pyrrhic victory in Nordyke v. King.

We therefore conclude that the right to keep and bear arms is "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition." Colonial revolutionaries, the Founders, and a host of commentators and lawmakers living during the first one hundred years of the Republic all insisted on the fundamental nature of the right. It has long been regarded as the "true palladium of liberty." Colonists relied on it to assert and to win their independence, and the victorious Union sought to prevent a recalcitrant South from abridging it less than a century later. The crucial role this deeply rooted right has played in our birth and history compels us to recognize that it is indeed fundamental, that it is necessary to the Anglo-American conception of ordered liberty that we have inherited.17 We are therefore persuaded that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment and applies it against the states and local governments.18

The Heller decision answered a very specific question: is there a right to have a handgun, or any loaded firearm, in your home? The Alameda County ordinance, as silly as it was, did not prevent that. Nor did it apply to public streets. It applied only to non-public facilities owned by the county. A government acting as landlord has substantially more discretion than the government acting as government.

Because Alameda County technically "won," they can't appeal to the Supreme Court. They can, at most, request what is called an en banc hearing of the Ninth Circuit (in which a larger panel of judges decides whether this decision is correct or not). It appears unlikely that such an en banc hearing will take place.

To give you some idea of the crackpot thinking behind the Alameda County ordinance, though, here (according to the 9th Circuit) is what its author said:

Shortly before proposing the Ordinance, King sent a memorandum to the County Counsel asking him to research "the most appropriate way" she might "prohibit the gun shows" on County property. King declared she had "been trying to get rid of gun shows on Country property" for "about three years," but she had "gotten the run around from spineless people hiding behind the constitution, and been attacked by aggressive gun toting mobs on right wing talk radio." At her press conference, King also said that the County should not "provide a place for people to display guns for worship as deities for the collectors who treat them as icons of patriotism." Without expressing any opinion about King's remarks, the Board of Supervisors adopted the Ordinance.

As to the "aggressive gun toting mobs on right wing talk radio," I'm wondering... How is Supervisor King able to see guns being toted on the radio?

Nor can I figure out how to interpret her remark about guns being worshiped as deities. What's the subtext here? Is she trying to set up a conflict between the Second Amendment and the Second Commandment?

(I guess it could have been worse. At least she didn't say guns were phallic symbols.)