It seems that the ink was barely dry on the Heller decision before the NRA began challenging other gun bans. This story comes to us from San Francisco, following a challenge in Chicago.

The National Rifle Association sued the city of San Francisco on Friday to overturn its handgun ban in public housing, a day after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a handgun ban in the nation’s capital.

The legal action follows a similar lawsuit against the city of Chicago over its handgun ban, filed within hours of Thursday’s high court ruling.

This story was brought to my attention over at Hot Air, where Ed Morrissey was commenting on it. As he points out, there are some subtle but notable differences between the San Francisco case and Heller.

This case will definitely provide better clarification of Heller. The DC gun ban reflected the limits of states and cities for general gun ownership restrictions, but a court could easily conclude that the government has more expansive rights on public housing. The city owns the housing and rents it to the tenants. However, such a ruling could have a huge and negative impact on the scope of other rights for public-housing residents. Do they have lesser 4th Amendment rights on search and seizure, too? Can the government place tighter restrictions on speech and the practice of religion in public housing?

While I agree that the apparent differences are interesting, I think there is little to fear. On every level there are reams of legal text on the rights of tenants vs. landlords. While it is tempting to treat public housing differently, in this case the city truly is nothing more than a landlord. While the property owner maintains and can exert tremendous power over what goes on regarding a leased property, I did some quick checking at FindLaw and see nothing which indicates that a landlord has ever been able to supress constitutional rights which do not directly affect the physical property. (i.e. real estate.)

The owner can prevent the tenant from painting the walls, changing the carpeting, or otherwise physically altering the property. However, they can not restrict people of a given religion from renting nor prohibit them from praying inside the property. (This is not to say that a “nod and a wink” situation won’t exist where certain renters are excluded for “other reasons” of course.) The landlord can not claim that the police can enter the rental without a warrant, etc.

While the Kelo case of eminent domain tought me not to be too surprised at anything the Supremes may do, it seems to me that Keller has laid the base groundwork which will make the bans in Chicago and San Francisco fall without too much of a fight. Specific classes of people can still have their rights to gun ownership restricted following Keller, but general bans of “everyone in this given area” (even if “this area” is a public housing tract) being forbidden gun ownership has, I believe, fallen by the wayside. If the lower courts don’t completely ignore this definitive ruling, expect to see most of these bans falling like dominos soon.