The Supreme Court declared for the first time yesterday that the US Constitution grants individual citizens the right to possess firearms, a ruling that threatens to unpick America’s patchwork of gun control laws.

By striking down Washington DC’s 32-year-old ban on handguns — one of the most restrictive pieces of legislation anywhere in America — the court has opened up similar laws elsewhere in the county to legal challenge.

The case hung on the interpretation of the Second Amendment, which grants citizens the right to carry arms. In more than 200 years the Supreme Court has never ruled decisively on the subject. Lower courts have usually interpreted the Second Amendment as a right tied to service in a state militia such as the National Guard.

By a majority of 5-4 the Supreme Court decided that an individual’s right to bear arms was supported by “the historical narrative” — including English common law — both before and after the amendment was adopted in 1791.

Times Archive, 1968: The law of the gun

The Second Amendment has sentimental value for a society used to violence and habituated to the cult of the gun

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Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, said that the Constitution did not allow “the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defence in the home”. The court also ruled as unconstitutional DC’s requirement that other firearms be equipped with trigger locks or kept disassembled.

The National Rifle Association, part of a powerful pro-gun lobby, swiftly welcomed the verdict. “This is a great moment in American history,” said executive vice-president Wayne LaPierre. “It vindicates Americans all over this country who have always known this is their freedom worth protecting. I consider this the opening salvo in a step-by-step process of providing relief for law-abiding Americans everywhere.”

The NRA will file lawsuits in San Francisco, Chicago and several of its suburbs challenging handgun restrictions. It claims that such laws such as those in DC and other urban areas prevent people from defending themselves in crime-ridden inner-city neighbourhoods.

Mr Scalia’s majority opinion also stated that the freedom to possess a gun “for traditionally lawful purposes” was not unlimited. “It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose,” he said.

Justices in the majority “are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country” and believe that the Constitution “leaves the District of Columbia a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns”, he added.

Professor Laurence Tribe, a leading expert in constitutional law said that “regretfully, and speaking as a liberal scholar” the Second Amendment did appear to support an individual right to possess guns.

“The more important point is how far that right can be regulated,” he told The Times. It would still be possible for states to impose limits on carrying concealed weapons, regulate the sale of firearms and stop certain categories of people — including the mentally ill or those with criminal records — from owning guns. “I’m not persuaded that more people will die,” he said. “The cause and effect is much more complicated. What we will see is all sorts of challenges and litigation. This will be a lawyers’ bonanza.”

Asked if England and Wales — where there were 50 deaths through gun crime in 2005 compared with 12,352 gun-related murders in the US — could teach America a lesson, he said: “We come from a much more violent culture, one in which it would be much more difficult to enact and enforce a complete ban. Whatever the law, we’re not going to become England.”

The court split on ideological lines with the two justices appointed by Mr Bush in recent years, John Roberts and Samuel Alito, both voting with the majority.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority “would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons”. He said such evidence was nowhere to be found. Although some members of the Bush Administration have expressed fears about the consequences of lifting the handgun ban, the White House said yesterday that the President agreed strongly with the Supreme Court’s historic decision.

John McCain, the Republican nominee, who has worked hard to overcome the suspicion of America’s gun lobby, also praised the ruling.

Mr Obama, the Democratic nominee, cannot afford to antagonise voters in small town America whom he has already accused of clinging to guns and religion. He issued a carefully balanced statement, saying: “I have always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms. Today’s decision reinforces that if we act responsibly, we can both protect the constitutional right . . . and keep our communities and our children safe.”

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