U.S. justices could decide constitutionality of gun ownership
WASHINGTON: Both sides in a closely watched legal battle over the District of Columbia's strict gun-control law are urging the Supreme Court to hear the case. If the justices agree - a step they may announce as early as Tuesday - the Roberts court is very likely to find itself back on the front lines of the culture wars with an intensity unmatched even by the cases on abortion and race that defined the court's last term.
The question is whether the Second Amendment to the Constitution protects an individual right to "keep and bear arms." If the answer is yes, as a federal appeals court held in March, the justices must decide what such an interpretation means for a statute that bars all possession of handguns and that requires any other guns in the home to be disassembled or secured by trigger locks.
The Supreme Court has never answered the Second Amendment question directly, and it has been...