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DC residents have been barred from keeping handguns for 32 years
A ban on handguns in Washington DC has been ruled unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court. In a 5-4 decision, the justices upheld a lower court ruling striking down the ban. The justices said individuals had a right to own guns for personal use.
It is the first such case considered by the court in decades and is expected to have effects on gun laws across the US.
Debate over the exact meaning of the constitutional right to keep and bear arms has raged for years.
Since 1976, the private possession of handguns had been prohibited in the nation's capital, while rifles and shotguns had been required to be locked away or dismantled.
The DC city council argued that the ban was needed to help keep violence and murder rates down.
But the measure was challenged by a security guard, Dick Heller.
He argued that if he was allowed to have a handgun at work, he also had a constitutional right to have one at home for self-defence.
Friends of the court In March last year, a federal appeals court agreed with Mr Heller that the Second Amendment protected an individual's right to keep and bear arms and that the DC ban was unconstitutional.
The city appealed against that ruling, with the case going to the Supreme Court.
The debate is centred on whether the Second Amendment, ratified in 1791, protects an individual's right to possess guns, or simply a collective right for an armed militia.
The case has been closely watched, with dozens of outside groups filing opinions, known as "friends of the court" briefs, setting out their arguments for or against the DC ban.
The Supreme Court's ruling could spark challenges to gun control laws in other parts of the US, experts say.
