You deserve a break today: McDonald's ruling.

Sebastian at Snowflakes In Hell gives a great first impression of Alito's plainly-worded decision in McDonald v Chicago.

It's not perfect (5-4 decision, same as Heller), but:

Basically, the lower court's decision is reversed and remanded. Heller is upheld, and Alito repeatedly makes clear that the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is a right.

It has a lot of greatness, but this one catches the eye:

Municipal respondents’ remaining arguments are at war with our central holding in Heller: that the Second Amendment protects a personal right to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes, most notably for self-defense within the home. Municipal respondents, in effect, ask us to treat the right recognized in Heller as a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees that we have held to be incorporated into the Due Process Clause.

I did a search of the 214 page decision, and found that the word "right" comes up 665 times. That's a good thing, I think.

And this may be the star quote:

This line of argument is, of course, inconsistent with the long-established standard we apply in incorporation cases. See Duncan, 391 U. S., at 149, and n. 14. And the pre- sent-day implications of municipal respondents’ argument are stunning. For example, many of the rights that our Bill of Rights provides for persons accused of criminal offenses are virtually unique to this country. If our understanding of the right to a jury trial, the right against self-incrimination, and the right to counsel were necessary attributes of any civilized country, it would follow that the United States is the only civilized Nation in the world.

If only they'd referenced Marko Kloos at that last line.

More to come. Hurray!

Now that's just silly!

The local windspeed gusted 'WAY more than 56 mph. I'd say closer to 65.

The sustained windspeed is about right, though, with driving rain.

Wish I were sleeping through it.

Life in the purple zone of the radars.