Contact: Alan Gottlieb, Second Amendment Foundation, 425-454-7012

BELLEVUE, Wash., May 8 /Standard Newswire/ -- This morning's decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to deny a petition from the District of Columbia for a hearing of Parker v. District of Columbia before the full court was "right and proper," said Alan M. Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation.

"This is a strong signal that the D.C. Court of Appeals, which is the second most powerful court in the country, feels the original ruling by Senior Judge Laurence H. Silberman is solid," Gottlieb stated. "It is now up to the district to accept the ruling and begin the process of licensing handguns to be kept legally in district residences, or to appeal the case to the Supreme Court."

The Parker case has become the most significant Second Amendment case in the nation's history, because for the first time, a gun control law was struck down on the grounds that it violated the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Judge Silberman's ruling found that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms that goes beyond service in a militia.

"The time is long past due for the Supreme Court to hear a case that has such gravity in terms of the Second Amendment and its true meaning," Gottlieb observed. "For almost 70 years, a state of confusion has existed over whether the Second Amendment protects an individual civil right, as we are certain it does, rather than affirming some convoluted 'collective right' of the states to form militias. That interpretation has been carefully fabricated over the years by anti-gun zealots whose ultimate goal is to strip American citizens of their firearms rights.

"We think this question must be answered," he continued, "to forever silence those gun control extremists who have been misinterpreting – we believe deliberately – the 1939 U.S. v Miller case in an on-going effort to destroy the cornerstone of the Bill of Rights, and the foundation for liberty in this country. This appears to be the right case, and this is certainly the right time."

The Second Amendment Foundation is the nation's oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 600,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.