Bang to rights: U.S. gun owners applaud Supreme Court ruling that individuals CAN bear arms

The judgment – the court’s first on gun rights since the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1791 – means citizens can legally own weapons for selfdefence and hunting.

But gun control advocates attacked the decision last night, warning it could overturn attempts in some crime-plagued cities to curb gun violence.

Aiming to lift all restrictions: Gun activists are filing lawsuits

It came just 24 hours after a gunman burst into a plastics factory in Kentucky killing five workers – the latest in a series of deadly shooting sprees across the country.

Yesterday’s judgment rested on an interpretation of the Second Amendment, 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.’

America’s anti-gun lobby have long argued that the conditions apply only to members of a state militia and not to private individuals.

Pro-gun rights demonstrators outside the U.S. Supreme Court today in Washington D.C. where it was ruled that individual American have the right to own a gun for lawful use

But the Court, by a majority of 5-4, ruled that the amendment protects an individual’s right to own guns no matter what.

The justices also struck down Washington DC’s strict gun control laws, introduced 32 years ago, which banned private possession of handguns, and require rifles or shotguns to be locked up or disassembled.

Gun activists are today filing lawsuits to lift handgun restrictions in San Francisco and Chicago.

The Supreme Court’s last review of the Second Amendment in 1939 failed to resolve the issue definitively.

But yesterday’s decision went even further than the pro-gun White House had hoped.

Revealing the ruling, Justice Antonin Scalia, a hunter, said an individual’s right to bear arms is supported by ‘the historical narrative’ both before and after the amendment was adopted.

He maintained that the constitution does not permit ‘the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defence in the home’.

Just say no: Activists with the Brady Campaign for gun control hold signs outside the Supreme Court in Washington

But he insisted that nothing in yesterday’s ruling should ‘cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons or the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings’.

In dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote: ‘The decision threatens to throw into doubt the constitutionality of gun laws throughout the United States.’

Yesterday the judgment provoked sharp differences of opinion.

Weapons cache: Guns line the walls of the firearms reference collection at the Washington Metropolitan Police Department headquarters

Wayne LaPierre, of the National Rifle Association, said: ‘I consider this the opening salvo in a stepby- step process of providing relief for law-abiding Americans everywhere that have been deprived of this freedom.’

But California Senator Dianne Feinstein said: ‘I believe the people of this great country will be less safe because of it.’

John McCain, the Republican presidential hopeful, also took the opportunity to criticise his Democrat rival Barack Obama.

Winners: Gun rights activist cheer upon hearing the news from US Supreme Court

During the primary campaign trail, Mr Obama claimed some Americans clung to religion and guns during times of hardship.

Mr McCain said: ‘Unlike the elitist view that believes Americans cling to guns out of bitterness, today’s ruling recognises gun ownership is a fundamental right – sacred, just as the right to free speech and assembly.’

•Yesterday's historic decision over the right of Americans to own guns came down to three small commas in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

America’s conflicting gun lobbies have argued over the placing of the commas for years, irrespective of the chaotic punctuation in the 1800s.

The Second Amendment, as drawn up by America’s founding fathers, reads: ‘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 Supreme Court justices, by the barest majority, backed the interpretation that the second comma (the one after ‘state’) proves that the amendment not only protects the collective right of states to maintain their militias, but also endows each individual with the right to carry a gun, irrespective of membership in the local militia.

According to the Supreme Court, the second comma divides the amendment into two clauses, with no need for the third comma at all.

By this reading, the amendment means a militia is necessary for the security of a state, but also the right of people to have a gun should not be infringed.

However, the anti-gun advocates work from a different interpretation.

They claim that what the founding fathers really meant to say was that ‘a well regulated militia shall not be infringed’.

They argue that ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms’ applies only to members of a state militia.