Last April a 3-judge panel held in the case of Nordyke v. King that the Second Amendment was incorporated against the states through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (in other words, that the right to bear arms applies against the states). A majority of all 27 active Ninth Circuit judges subsequently voted to vacate the panel decision, and thus cause today's rehearing by an 11-judge panel of the Court.
The earlier decision had created a split among the circuits (with the Second and Seventh Circuits rejecting incorporation) which boded well for an ultimate Supreme Court show-down on the issue. Nevertheless, in a post-D.C. v. Heller environment, one imagines it's only a matter of time before the court of last resort takes up the issue.
(In Heller the SCOTUS ruled that "[t]he Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home" and "that the District’s ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense." Heller left open the question of whether the same protection applies against state infringements against the right).
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