After weeks of silence, the U.S. Supreme Court is back at the top of the news. On Monday, the justices announced they will weigh in on the divisive issue of indecency. And today, the court will hear arguments on a potentially historic Second Amendment case.
Indeed, Heller v. District of Columbia stands to become the court's seminal ruling on gun ownership.
The District of Columbia is appealing a ruling by the city's U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the capital's 32-year-old handgun ban is unconstitutional. The District had rejected an application from 65-year-old security guard Dick Heller to store his sidearm at his home for self-defense purposes. But Mr. Heller's attorneys successfully argued that the city law, which requires approved handguns and rifles to be disassembled and locked up separate from ammunition, violated his Second Amendment rights.
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In other business, the high court agreed Monday to consider whether the federal government can punish broadcasters for airing fleeting obscenities, such as the "f-bombs" occasionally uttered by celebrities on live awards shows.
After years of delineating between the use of certain offensive words as nouns or adjectives, the Federal Communications Commission ramped up its intolerance for such language, arguing that the First Amendment right to free speech goes out the door if impressionable children could be tuning in.
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