“The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Washington D.C.’s sweeping ban on handguns is unconstitutional. The justices voted 5-4 against the ban with Justice Antonin Scalia writing the opinion for the majority. At issue in District of Columbia v. Heller was whether the city’s ban violated the Second Amendment right to ‘keep and bear arms’ by preventing individuals — as opposed to state militias — from having guns in their homes. … The Second 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.’ The wording repeatedly has raised the question of whether gun ownership is an individual right, or a collective one pertaining to state militias and therefore subject to regulation. The Supreme Court has avoided the question since the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. The high court last examined the issue in 1939 but stayed away from the broad constitutional question.” (06/26/08)