A friend sent over some news about a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals preliminary ruling (Nordyke vs. King [Alameda County]) that is positive on the possession of firearms:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=95767
WND quoted:
This necessary 'right of the people' existed before the Second Amendment as 'one of the fundamental rights of Englishmen,'" the ruling said. "Heller identified several reasons why the militia was considered 'necessary to the security of a free state.' First, 'it is useful in repelling invasions and suppressing insurrections. Second, it renders large standing armies unnecessary . . . . Third, when the able-bodied men of a nation are trained in arms and organized, they are better able to resist tyranny.
Not to be harsh on WorldNetDaily, but they do read too much into things at times. In light of this I went looking and found a C-SPAN recording of the proceedings:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8503876057040470652 (~50 min, unofficial transcript)
The case is over whether it was possible to have a gun show at the county fairgrounds in Alameda County, California. The county wanted to ensure that only previously authorized individuals could have firearms. They maintained that it did not prohibit gun sales on its property but only prevented unauthorized possession on the property. At this, Justice Alarcó commented:
It seems strange to me to say that you can have a gun show without showing your guns.
This is such a backwards argument that even the lawyer for the county was forced to concede that he didn’t know how sales would actually take place. He thought perhaps the sale could be made and then they could move off of county property to look at the firearm. Even if they allowed the gun and sale to be on the property, by their own rules, when the firearm changed hands due to the sale the customer would be in unauthorized possession. My legal background is almost non-existent but I think the point made was a good one, that the sale of firearms is necessary to have them in the home. This right is protected by the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution.