Reason's Brian Doherty, has an excellent article telling the fascinating story of the origins of the lawsuit that eventually resulted in the Supreme Court's decision in District of Columbia v. Heller. Brian shows how the suit was initiated and carried forward by a small group of libertarian activists and lawyers, sometimes in the face of surprising skepticism by the NRA and other gun rights supporters.

I differ slightly with Brian in so far as I think he may overstate the extent to which Heller will actually result in increased protection for Second Amendment rights. For the reasons I set out in this Legal Times article, I think that Heller's impact may well turn out to be extremely limited. Still, the Heller litigation was at least an important symbolic victory in so far as it led the Supreme Court to recognize for the first time that the Second Amendment establishes an individual right for gun owners as opposed to a "collective right" limited to militia members.