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D.C. gun ban struck down

Ruling lays out rights of individual

By Gary Emerling (Contact) | Friday, June 27, 2008

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A divided Supreme Court struck down the District's three-decade-old ban on handguns Thursday, ruling for the first time that the Constitution's Second Amendment guarantees individuals the right to own guns so they can protect themselves at home.

The landmark 5-4 decision is certain to renew the fierce national debate over gun control, as cities and states look for alternatives to conquer gun violence without running afoul of the court's ruling.

Closer to home, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty vowed to enact a registration process that would allow the District to regulate gun ownership, while an emboldened National Rifle Association - the Northern Virginia-based gun lobby that helped make overturning the D.C. ban a cause celebre - set its sights on new legal fights to free gun owners from government restrictions.

"Our Founding Fathers wrote and intended the Second Amendment to be an individual right,"said Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association, who called the court's ruling "a great moment in American history."

"The Second Amendment as an individual right now becomes a real permanent part of American constitutional law," he said.

In the majority opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia, the court ruled for the first time since the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791 that the Founding Fathers intended for individuals also to own guns when they wrote into the Constitution's Bill of Rights that "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."

"Undoubtedly, some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem," Justice Scalia wrote. "That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct."

Although the majority opinion pointed out that prior courts found prohibitions against carrying concealed weapons legal under the Second Amendment or "state analogues," Justice Scalia only briefly mentioned the historical use of firearms for recreational purposes such as hunting.

However, the justices appeared to leave untouched many other regulations involving guns, making clear that the government can regulate gun ownership for the public's safety.

"Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms," Justice Scalia wrote.