There’s never been a better time in America for gun rights advocates. Starting in 2008 with the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Heller decision, continuing through 2010 with the McDonald case, and showing no signs of abating this Monday after the Woollard ruling was filed by a federal court in Maryland: in just a few short years the country has been swept with a wave of unprecedented court decisions that have amounted to nothing less than a revolution for gun rights and jurisprudence surrounding the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Before jumping to Monday’s Woollard ruling, which overturned some of Maryland’s notoriously strict gun control policy, a brief review of the “Second Amendment Revolution” is in order. In District of Columbia v. Heller, which was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2008, the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns was overturned as unconstitutional. Many Americans might be surprised to learn that as late as 2008, this was actually the first time in U.S. history that the Supreme Court decided whether or not the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to own a gun for self defense. It was a major milestone for gun rights advocates.