Kozinski also argued that the "doomsday" nature of the Second Amendment was created in order to prevent Americans from falling under the yoke of tyrannical leaders. He contended that slavery survived until the Civil War because black Americans -- both slave and free -- were not allowed to own guns they could have used to protect themselves from marauding whites.

bq. The Supreme Court's landmark 1857 Dred Scott decision that upheld slavery was issued in part, Kozinski said, because the justices and white society couldn't stomach the thought of blacks possessing firearms. "The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crimes routinely do. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late," Kozinski said in his fiery opinion. "The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed.... However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once," he stated.

For the record, we believe that the Second Amendment does provide for an individual right to bear arms. Eugene Volokh, who used to be a law clerk for Judge Kozinski, has more on the opinion and the issue.

Another article on the case in Law.com praises the dissent of Judge Andrew Kleinfeld.

Where the Constitution establishes a right of the people, no organ of the government, including the courts, can legitimately take that right away from the people," Kleinfeld wrote. "All of our rights, every one of them, may become impediments to the efficient functioning of our government and our society from time to time, but fortunately they are locked in by the Constitution against permanent loss because of temporary impediments."