Walter Dellinger has argued before the Supreme Court on many occasions. In fact, according to a Post profile of the lawyer and academic, he’s been in front of the nine justices often this year — three times in the last four weeks. And while yesterday’s argument may have been one of the most historic, it probably wasn’t the most fun.

Dellinger, who argued for the District in yesterday’s ground-breaking case on the Second Amendment, didn’t get more than 30 seconds into his argument before he was peppered with pointed questions from various justices. It didn’t get much easier from that point on. In fact, you could say he faced a less skeptical crowd of justices the last time he stood before the court — when he argued that ExxonMobil shouldn’t have to pay punitive damages for spilling 11 million gallons of oil off the coast of Alaska.

Throughout the almost two-hour proceedings, justices including Chief Justice John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and swing-voter Anthony Kennedy took apart the District’s argument that the Second Amendment grants only gun ownership in the context of a state-regulated militia, and that the city’s restrictive gun laws are both necessary and constitutionally sound. And while Alan Gura, who argued against the District, faced a number of prying questions himself, he faced comparably smooth sailing in contending that residents both need and should be allowed to keep handguns in their homes.

Photo by mnesterpics