The same logic would seem to apply to another gun case, McDonald v. City of Chicago, which affirmed in 2010 that the Second Amendment applies to the states.

Somin agrees with Hewitt and me that Heller is good law, but argues that its importance is being overstated:

I am a strong supporter of Heller. But I also think it is a decision that has had very little effect and does not seem likely to have more effect in the near to medium term future. Heller and MacDonald between them struck down only the most extreme forms of gun control, completely forbidding people to own guns in the home, which happens in very few jurisdictions. And the text of Heller is riddled with exceptions. Lower courts hearing cases since then have really taken up those exceptions and run with them. From the standpoint of 90 to 95 percent of what's politically feasible in terms of gun control, Heller has very little effect on it. It still does matter because there's a chance the court could build on Heller in the future, 30 years from now, and make it stronger, so I'm not going to say that overruling it doesn't matter. But it matters a lot less than perhaps Hewitt thinks it does. And I'm not convinced it really would be overruled, partly because the court hesitates to overrule precedent when they can get around it. Here, what I think they would be more likely to do in a future case is to say there is an individual right but it just doesn't encompass whatever is being challenged. That would make the right pretty hollow. But it already is hollow the way that it is being interpreted now. So I think it is more likely that a new Democratic nominee would interpret Heller narrowly rather than overrule it.

Somin adds that Trump has embraced the position that anyone who is on the no-fly list should lose the right to own a gun. Since that list is assembled in secret using opaque criteria, a court case upholding it would set a worrying precedent for gun rights, indeed. “If you think that is constitutional,” Somin says, “you will accept virtually any other form of gun control that is actually likely to be enacted. That constraint is so ridiculous and dubious that if you think it's justified you'll probably go along with anything else except complete confiscation.” Still, he said, from his libertarian originalist viewpoint, it is “a bit more likely on average” that a Trump appointee will be better than a Clinton appointee on the right to bear arms.

Citizens United

Should citizens critical of a political candidate be allowed to make and air a movie opposing him or her? And should they be allowed to advertise that movie on television, even if they’ve adopted the structure of a non-for-profit corporation to do so?

Somin and I say yes. Most Democrats and some Republicans say no.

“Yes, that will probably be overruled. You know who wants to overrule Citizens United? A certain Mr. Donald Trump. He has said several times that he supports getting rid of it,” Somin said. “It would be a bad thing if it were overruled. And it's a highly vulnerable decision. It's very unpopular with the public. Before Citizens United, there was more campaign finance regulation than is just. There was a threat of more being done. On the other hand, it's not like the First Amendment was fully gutted or the republic wasn't functioning. The real harm, if it were overturned, would be to open the door to harmful campaign finance legislation in the future that would go beyond some of the stuff in McCain-Feingold and the like. So long as we have divided government, that sort of legislation is unlikely to pass. But I agree. Citizens United is highly likely to be overruled. It is more likely with Hillary Clinton than with Donald Trump but with Trump, he's shown he's against the decision.”