Most gun laws secure

WASHINGTON —(AP)- Washington’s blanket ban on handguns will fall and tight gun laws in places such as Chicago and San Francisco are sure to come under attack.

But most of the nation’s firearms regulations will probably stay on the books, and some politicians said Thursday’s Supreme Court decision won’t hinder their efforts to prevent bloodshed.

In Connecticut, where the state constitution already refers to gun ownership as an individual right, officials said they expect few changes, if any, as a result of the high court ruling.

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision struck down the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns.

“There seems to us no doubt, on the basis of both text and history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority.

It was the justices’ first-ever pronouncement on the meaning of gun rights under the Second Amendment.

Gun rights advocates cheered the decision. “I consider this the opening salvo in a step-by-step process of providing relief for law-abiding Americans everywhere that have been deprived of this freedom,” said Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association.

The NRA will file lawsuits in San Francisco, Chicago and several Chicago suburbs, challenging handgun restrictions based on Thursday’s outcome.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito joined the majority. Justice John Paul Stevens dissented, joined by Justices David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

“The court’s announcement of a new constitutional right to own and use firearms upsets [previous] understandings, but leaves for future cases the formidable task of defining the scope of permissible regulations,” Stevens wrote.