Who benefits from the McDonald decision? Also, I unload on a Fudd. First the firearms, then the liberty.

Why Democrats, of course.

Here's the first few paragraphs of the Politico story:

When the Supreme Court extended the individual right to own a gun Monday, it handed Second Amendment advocates — many of whom are at home in the GOP — one of their most significant legal victories ever.

But who won the day in politics? The Democrats.

For them, the court’s groundbreaking decision couldn’t have been more beneficial to the cause in November. Now, Democratic candidates across the map figure they have one less issue to worry about on the campaign trail. And they won’t have to defend Republican attacks over gun rights and an angry, energized base of gun owners.

“It removes guns as a political issue because everyone now agrees that the Second Amendment is an individual right, and everybody agrees that it’s subject to regulation,” said Lanae Erickson, deputy director of the culture program at centrist think tank Third Way.

A House Democratic aide agreed that the court’s decision removed a potentially combustible element from the mix.

“The Supreme Court ruled here that you have a fundamental right to own and bear arms, and that means at the national level it’s harder — whether it’s Republicans or whether it’s the [National Rifle Association] — to throw that claim out: If Democrats are in charge. they’re going to come get your guns,” said the aide. “It pretty much took that off the table.”

"Everybody agrees that it’s subject to regulation," huh? Well, not everybody.

Yesterday I had a bit of verbal tussle with a guy in a gun shop who was enthused over McDonald. He was waxing eloquent about how "the NRA" had saved "our Second Amendment rights." After I set him straight about the odious nature of the NRA's real actions in this case versus the Second Amendment Foundation, he admitted he hadn't known that. He just assumed that the NRA MUST have been behind the legal challenge, because, well, they were the NRA and wasn't that what they did?

Then he screwed up and offered this gem: "Well, at least the Supreme Court has guaranteed our Second Amendment rights."

I unloaded on him in words to this effect:

"Look, your right to self-defense, your right to arms, is natural and God-given. The most that any scrap of paper can do is codify that fact. The Second Amendment doesn't "guarantee" anything. The Supreme Court doesn't "guarantee" anything. Do you know what does?"

"God?" he offered.

"No, not God. The rights come from God but they're not guaranteed by Him."

I snatched a rifle off the display rack in the middle of the shop and held it at port arms.

"This. This, and millions like it in the hands of citizens willing to use them to defend their liberty and property against free-lance criminals or tyrannical governments. It is those millions of rifles and the will to use them that secures our liberties in this country. First comes the military fact of the firearms in the hands of citizens, then follows the legal niceties of the liberty recognized after the fact by politicians. Without the one, tyrants don't respect the other. Remember that."

And without another word, I replaced the rifle in the rack, picked up my cane and gimped out of the store.

The McDonald decision, like the Heller decision before it, means exactly dick in the grand scheme of things. Liberty is secured by free men who are willing to kill for it and who hold the means to accomplish that in their own hands.

Everything else is eyewash.