| pThe Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense and hunting, the justices' first major pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history./ppThe court's 5-4 ruling struck down the District of Columbia's 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment. The decision went further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most firearms laws intact./ppThe court had not conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment since its ratification in 1791. The amendment reads: A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed./ppThe basic issue for the justices was whether the amendment protects an individual's right to own guns no matter what, or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia./ppWriting for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said that an individual right to bear arms is supported by the historical narrative both before and after the Second Amendment was adopted./ppThe Constitution does not permit the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home, Scalia said. The court also struck down Washington's requirement that firearms be equipped with trigger locks or kept disassembled, but left intact the licensing of guns./ppIn a dissent he summarized from the bench, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons./ppHe said such evidence is nowhere to be found./ppJustice Stephen Breyer wrote a separate dissent in which he said, In my view, there simply is no untouchable constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden urban areas./ppJoining Scalia were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas. The other dissenters were Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter./ppGun rights supporters hailed the decision. I consider this the opening salvo in a step-by-step process of providing relief for law-abiding Americans everywhere that have been deprived of this freedom, said Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association./ppThe NRA will file lawsuits in San Francisco, Chicago and several of its suburbs challenging handgun restrictions there based on Thursday's outcome./ppThe capital's gun law was among the nation's strictest./p |
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