For now, last week’s landmark Supreme Court ruling on gun rights doesn’t mean much to Lawrence County residents.

The ruling effectively struck down Washington, D.C.’s, stringent handgun control ban, with a nod to the notion that the Second Amendment to the Constitution expressly protects the right to individual gun ownership.

Lawrence County — all of Pennsylvania for that matter — has no gun restrictions even remotely as stringent as the one in the nation’s capital. So the immediate result here is inconsequential.

Gun rights advocates tend to cheer the decision, while supporters of gun restrictions are appalled. The truth, however, is something more nuanced. This muddled 5-4 decision, where once again ideology on the court appeared to trump anything resembling the law, will first and foremost lead to a rash of a lawsuits over gun laws, and a new round of legal hairsplitting on the high court.

An analysis of the majority opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia suggests there is no desire on the court to have a widespread rejection of gun control laws. It specifically defends laws that prohibit, for example, gun ownership by felons and the mentally ill, unpermitted concealed weapons and guns in “sensitive” areas (such as government buildings).

There is also the implication that certain types of weapons can be banned. The right to bear arms, it would seem, does not allow the bearing of nuclear arms, or perhaps the carrying of a submachine gun.

But confirmation of such details will likely have to await future court rulings. America is a land dotted with a wide array of state laws and local ordinances detailing restrictions on guns. More than anything else, this ruling issues a green light to efforts to challenge them.

Perhaps that would not be so bad, but once again, the court has, in this year’s session, produced another string of 5-4 rulings on crucial issues of the day. It is disheartening to know the direction of so much of the nation’s legal leadership depends so much on the views of a single individual.

While the immediate impact of this decision will produce no changes locally, it does contribute to the politicization of the high court, and the continued obsession with a high-stakes game of selecting a friendly replacement whenever a vacancy occurs.

That’s bad policy, and it’s certainly not justice.