By The Editors

For the second time in two years, the Supreme Court narrowly ruled that gun-control laws cannot abridge the right to bear arms the Second Amendment grants individuals. The decision came in a case challenging the gun-control laws of Chicago and a nearby suburb, Oak Park, Illinois, McDonald v. Chicago, No. 08-1521.

In 2008, the Court had struck down the District of Columbia’s strict gun-control by the same 5-to-4 margin, on the grounds that it violated the Second Amendment. The ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller involved federal law; the current case applies to local and state governments.

The National Rifle Association and other opponents of gun-control laws hailed the decision, while gun-control advocates warned that it will make efforts to reduce gun violence more difficult.

But the decision left numerous questions about the polarizing issue unanswered – including whether the two local statutes at issue in the case were themselves unconstitutional. The justices returned the case to the lower federal courts to decide that question.

Legal experts said the Court’s 5-to-4 decision also virtually guaranteed that the contentious debate over the right of individuals to own guns versus the need of governments to try to limit the violence generated by guns would now grow even sharper, because the opposing sides of the issue were likely to challenge and defend, respectively, every local and state law regulating every type of firearm and where gun-owners have the right to openly carry them.