On September 4, 2007, Washington, DC Mayor Adrian Fenty and DC Attorney General Linda Singer appealed the ruling of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit invalidating DC's handgun ban to the US Supreme Court. The court had found that the city's 30-year-old ban on private possession of handguns was unconstitutionally broad. The Supreme Court ruled against DC in the case, District of Columbia v. Heller, finding that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to private gun ownership.

Learn more about the Second Amendment from Cornell University's Legal Information Institute.