2nd Amendment

Chicago (AP) - A Supreme Court ruling finding that Americans have the right to bear arms anywhere they live almost certainly means the end of Chicago's decades-old handgun ban, but it may not make handgun ownership there much easier if the city's powerful mayor has his way.

Shortly after the high court voted 5-4 Monday along familiar ideological lines -- with five conservative-moderate justices in favor of gun rights and four liberals opposed -- Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley said officials were already at work rewriting the city ordinance to adhere to the court ruling while protecting Chicago residents from gun violence.

"We will never give in to those who use guns to harm others," Daley said in comments aimed at his constituents. "Your fight is my fight and we're in this together"...

The Supreme Court on Monday extended the Second Amendment's right to keep and bear arms to the states in the second major victory for gun rights supporters in as many years.

The justices two years ago, by a 5-4 majority in the 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller case, recognized the right for Washington, D.C., residents to register handguns and keep them in their homes. But because of the District's status as a federal enclave, the decision did not apply to states and localities across the country.

The same five justices who formed the majority on that decision were also the majority of Monday's 5-4 decision, which concluded that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment "incorporates" Second Amendment protections not only against the federal government but also against states and localities...

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court appeared willing Tuesday to say that the U.S. Constitution's right to possess guns limits state and local regulation of firearms. But the justices also suggested that some gun control measures might not be affected.

At the very least, Tuesday's argument suggested that courts could be very busy in the years ahead determining precisely which gun laws are allowed under the Constitution's Second Amendment "right to keep and bear arms," and which must be stricken.

The court heard arguments in a case that challenges handgun bans in the Chicago area by asking the high court to extend to state and local jurisdictions the sweep of its 2008 decision striking down a gun ban in the federal enclave of Washington, D.C.

The biggest questions before the court seemed to be how, rather than whether, to issue such a ruling and whether some regulation of firearms could survive.  read more »

WASHINGTON (AP) - Gun control advocates think, if not pray, they can win by losing when the Supreme Court decides whether the constitutional right to possess guns serves as a check on state and local regulation of firearms.

The justices will be deciding whether the Second Amendment - like much of the rest of the Bill of Rights - applies to states as well as the federal government. It's widely believed they will say it does.

But even if the court strikes down handgun bans in Chicago and its suburb of Oak Park, Ill., that are at issue in the argument to be heard Tuesday, it could signal that less severe rules or limits on guns are permissible...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Setting the stage for a dramatic battle over gun rights, the Supreme Court on Wednesday accepted an appeal challenging the ability of state and local governments to enforce strict limits on handguns and other weapons.

The high court returned from its summer recess, meeting in private to consider thousands of pending appeals that have piled up the past three months.

The Second Amendment case from Chicago was the most anticipated of the petitions, and oral arguments will be held sometime early next year. Nine other cases were also accepted for review...

New rules for gun ownership drawn up by the District of Columbia City Council appear to be incompatible with the Supreme Court’s ruling that declared the city’s handgun ban unconstitutional.

The city’s emergency ordinance, which is supposed to comply with the Supreme Court ruling, may also violate the Americans With Disability Act, a Second Amendment group says.

John McCain welcomed a Supreme Court decision invalidating a District of Columbia handgun ban. Barack Obama sought to straddle the subject by saying he favors an individual's right to bear firearms as well as a government's right to regulate them.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, has struck down the District of Columbia's handgun ban.

The ruling says Americans have the individual right to own guns for self-defense and hunting, the Associated Press reported. It is the high court's first definitive Second Amendment ruling in U.S. history.

Some reaction to the Supreme Court's ruling Thursday that Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense and hunting:

Does the District of Columbia's ban on handgun ownership violate the Constitutional right to "keep and bear arms"? The U.S. Supreme Court will issue its ruling tomorrow.