The Supreme Court will decide whether strict local and state gun control laws violate the Second Amendment, reports the Associated Press. The review of a lower-court ruling upholding a handgun ban in Chicago ensures another high-profile battle over the rights of gun owners.
Gun rights supporters challenged gun laws in Chicago and some suburbs after the high court’s decision in June 2008 that struck down a handgun ban in the District of Columbia. The new case tests whether last year’s ruling applies as well to local and state laws. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit upheld laws barring the ownership of handguns in most cases in Chicago and suburban Oak Park, Il. Judge Frank Easterbrook, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, said that “the Constitution establishes a federal republic where local differences are to be cherished as elements of liberty rather than extirpated in order to produce a single, nationally applicable rule.”