WASHINGTON—For the first time in U.S. history, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that individual Americans have the right to own guns for personal use, and struck down a strict gun control law in the U.S. capital.
The landmark 5-4 ruling marked the first time in nearly 70 years the country's high court has addressed whether the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects an individual right to keep and bear arms, rather than a right tied to service in a state militia.
In the majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia said the Second Amendment protected an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.
Although an individual now has a constitutional right to own guns, that new right is not unlimited, wrote Scalia, a hunter.
He said the ruling should not be taken to cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill or on laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in places like schools and government buildings or laws imposing conditions on gun sales.
The Supreme Court's last review of the Second Amendment came in a five-page discussion in an opinion issued in 1939 that failed to definitively resolve the constitutional issue.
In Thursday's opinion, the court struck down the country's strictest gun control law adopted in Washington, D.C., 32 years ago. It bans private possession of handguns and requires that any rifles or shotguns kept at home be unloaded and dissembled or bound by a trigger lock.
and Gun Control
The Supreme Court's ruling on Thursday that Americans have the right to own guns for personal use could become an issue in the U.S. presidential race.
Here are the positions of the two candidates in November's election:
Democratic Candidate Sen. Barack Obama:
Wants tighter background checks on gun buyers, making gun locks mandatory and holding parents criminally responsible for children who injure someone with a gun found at home. Supports reinstating assault-weapons ban.
The National Rifle Association, a leading advocate of the right to bear arms, gives him a failing grade of F for his position on guns.
Republican Candidate Sen. John McCain:
Opposes gun control, calling it "a proven failure in fighting crime." Opposes waiting periods to buy firearms. Has supported legislation requiring gun makers to include trigger locks with their products. Opposes reinstating assault-weapons ban. Has supported mandating background checks on gun buyers at gun shows.
The National Rifle Association gives him an average grade of C for his position on guns but says he has a perfect voting record since 2007 and his grade may be revised.
Sources: Reuters, campaign Web sites, Detroit Free Press, the National Rifle Association
First Time Gun Control Law Struck Down
The ruling marked the first time that the Supreme Court has struck down a gun control law for violating the Second Amendment. The ruling could be the beginning of an era in which anti-gun regulations are subject to legal challenges.
The justices split along conservative-liberal lines in the ruling, one of the most important of the court's current term, in deciding a legal battle over gun rights in America. The ruling came on the last day of the court's 2007-08 term.
In dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote, "The decision threatens to throw into doubt the constitutionality of gun laws throughout the United States."
President George W. Bush's two appointees on the court, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, both voted with the majority in finding an individual right to keep firearms.
The court adopted the gun rights position advocated by the Bush administration. White House spokesman Tony Fratto said,
"We're pleased that the Supreme Court affirmed that the Second Amendment protects the right of Americans to keep and bear arms."
Republican presidential candidate John McCain applauded the ruling and criticized his likely Democratic opponent Barack Obama for comments he had made.
"Unlike the elitist view that believes Americans cling to guns out of bitterness, today's ruling recognizes that gun ownership is a fundamental right -- sacred, just as the right to free speech and assembly," McCain said.
The ruling came the day after a worker at a plastics plant in Henderson, Kentucky, used a handgun to shoot and kill five people inside the factory before killing himself, the latest in a series of deadly shooting sprees across the country.
The United States is estimated to have the world's highest civilian gun ownership rate. Gun deaths average 80 a day in the United States, 34 of them homicides, according to Centers for Disease Control data.
The ruling was a victory for Dick Anthony Heller, a security guard who lives in a high-crime neighborhood and who wants to keep a handgun in his home for self-defense.
For decades, the meaning of the Second Amendment has been at the heart of a political and legal debate debate over gun control. People have argued whether the amendment guarantees the right to bear arms to individuals or to citizens in a militia.
Written more than 200 years ago, the amendment says, "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."
Gun control advocates had feared that a ruling finding an unfettered individual right to own guns could place in jeopardy laws around the country regulating private possession of firearms—a view taken by the liberal dissenting justices.
The justices upheld a precedent-setting U.S. appeals court ruling that individuals have a right to bear arms and that struck down the Washington, D.C., law for violating those rights.
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