Ruling tests constitution on Americans’ right to bear arms

Australian, Page: 9. Friday, 27 June, 2008

The US Supreme Court is expected to rule for the first time in seven decades on the issue of the right to bear arms.
Expected overnight, the court’s decision on whether the right to keep and bear arms is fundamentally an individual or collective right was tipped to influence US gun-control laws.
The high court has never issued a ruling on the interpretation of the second amendment to the constitution, which states: “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.” At the centre of the case is Washington DC, which has some of the toughest gun control laws in the country.
Private possession of handguns is strictly banned in the national capital, and any rifles or shotguns kept in homes must be disassembled or kept under a trigger lock.
Washington government officials say the ban, instituted in 1976, is necessary to keep street violence and murder rates down, and that the second amendment protects gun rights for people associated with militias, not individuals.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs in the case, District of Columbia v Heller, first argued in 2003 that the DC gun ban violated second-amendment rights.
Alan Gura, the lead attorney for the plaintiff, said the city’s laws had “accomplished nothing except to prevent law abiding citizens from exercising their constitutional right to keep and bear arms”.
Interest in the case, originally brought by a federal building guard who carries a handgun on duty and wanted to keep it in his home for self-defence, has been steadily building, as evidenced by the rash of “friend of the court” amicus briefs filed on both sides.