On June 26th, 2008, the United States Supreme Court finally broke their silence regarding gun control in the home.  In a 5-4 decision, the court struck down a ban on handguns that was in place in the District of Columbia, and invalidates similar laws in other cities, such as San Francisco and Chicago.

The Second Amendment, which had not been decisively interpreted by the Supreme Court since its ratification in 1791, reads: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."  The question for the judges to decide was whether this amendment protects an individual's unreserved right to own a gun, or whether that right is connected to service in a state militia, a group of citizens that was once vital to a state, but is now archaic.

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On June 25th, 2008, the United States Supreme Court came to a controversial, 5-4 decision that struck down a Louisiana law that allows rapists to face the death penalty if their victims are children.   The Supreme Court banned executions for rape in 1977 in a case which the victim was an adult woman; and currently, five states besides Louisiana have allowed capital punishment in child rape cases-Georgia, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas.  Justice Anthony Kennedy stated in his writing of the majority opinion that although the crime is devastating to both the victim and the victim's family, he argues that "the death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child."  Kennedy went on to argue that because there have been no recent executions for rape cases, and because there are only a small number of states that allow capital punishment for such cases, he believes "there is a national consensus against capital punishment for the crime of child rape."

While this ruling prohibits the death penalty for any crime against an individual, short of murder, capital punishment is still allowed for crimes such as terrorism, espionage, and treason, which are defined as crimes against the state.