By David G. Savage , Tribune Newspapers|October 01, 2009
WASHINGTON - — WASHINGTON - -The Supreme Court set the stage for a historic ruling on gun rights and the Second Amendment by agreeing Wednesday to hear a challenge to Chicago's ban on handguns.
At issue is whether state and local gun-control ordinances can be struck down as violating the "right to keep and bear arms" in the Second Amendment.
A ruling on the issue, expected by summer, could open the door to legal challenges to gun-control measures in other cities and states. The case also will decide whether the Second Amendment protects a broad constitutional right, similar to the First Amendment right to free speech or the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.
In the past, the Supreme Court had given short shrift to the Second Amendment by saying it applies only to national laws and that its aim is to preserve "well-regulated militias."
This narrow view of the amendment conflicts with the views of most Americans, according to opinion polls.
Last year, the court in a 5-4 decision breathed new life into the amendment by ruling that it protected an individual's right to have a pistol at home for self-defense. The decision in District of Columbia v. Heller struck down a local ban on handguns.
But since the nation's capital is a federal enclave, the court did not reconsider its 19th-century rulings that said the Second Amendment applies only to federal laws and restrictions.
Since then, gun owners have filed new constitutional challenges in several cities, including Chicago and nearby Oak Park. They lost when judges there said they were bound by the high court's earlier rulings.
But the Supreme Court said Wednesday that it had voted to hear the appeals from gun owners in Chicago and Oak Park and to decide whether the Second Amendment restricts local and state laws as well as national measures.
Lawyers for the gun owners argued that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" set out in the Second Amendment is incorporated into the 14th Amendment and thereby applies to states and localities.
Lawyers on both sides say the gun-rights case revives a once-fierce debate over how to read the Bill of Rights.
Since the First Amendment begins with the words, "Congress shall make no law respecting" such matters as an "establishment of religion" or "abridging the freedom of speech," it was understood originally to limit only Congress and the national government. The same was true of the rest of the Bill of Rights.
