Who has the right to 'bear arms'? More than 200 years after the adoption of the bill of rights, the supreme court may finally clarify how far second amendment rights go.

• Author: Smith, Patricia
• Position: Cover story

Otis McDonald is fed up. His Chicago home has been broken into three times, and he wants to be able to keep a handgun in his house for self-defense. He can't, however, because Chicago bans the possession of handguns.

McDonald, who is 76, is challenging the ban, saying it violates his Second Amendment fights, and the Supreme Court is now considering his case, McDonald v. Chicago. The outcome of this closely watched case could have a powerful impact on the fights of individuals in all 50 states to own guns and the extent to which state and local governments can pass laws restricting gun ownership.

McDonald v. Chicago is actually the sequel to a landmark 2008 case in which the Supreme Court ruled for the first time that the Second Amendment's "right to bear arms" applies to individuals, not just to state militias, as many had interpreted it for more than 200 years. In striking down a handgun ban in Washington, D.C., in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Court established an individual fight to keep a handgun at home for self-defense.

That 5-4 ruling, however, applies only to places under federal jurisdiction, like Washington. The current case will determine if that individual right to bear arms applies everywhere else.

When McDonald was argued before the Supreme Court in March, comments from the Justices suggested that a majority are prepared to strike down Chicago's ban and rule that the Second Amendment does apply to the states.

One of the most disputed passages in the Constitution, the Second Amendment states, in its entirety: "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 BILL OF RIGHTS

The first 10 amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights, were adopted in 1791 in response to fears that the Constitution gave the new federal government in Washington too much power. The Bill of Rights was originally a restriction on only the power of the federal government, not the states.

It was only after the Civil War, with the passage of the 14th Amendment, that the Supreme Court began to apply most, but not all, of the protections in the Bill of Rights to the states. (The Court has ruled, for example, that the right to a trial by jury does not extend to state courts.)

For three decades, starting in the 1960s, the story of gun control was one of notorious crimes and laws passed in response, beginning with the 1968 federal gun-control law that followed the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Senator Robert E Kennedy, who was running for President. In 1994...