How will the recent Supreme Court Decision on gun control impact the safety of Americans, especially in urban environments?

The Supreme Court ruled on June 26, 2008 that the Constitution guarantees individuals the right to keep handguns in the home. This ended an ongoing debate about the Second Amendment's 18th-century language that includes a phrase about the right to bear arms in the context of militias. But opened up a new series of debates over the politically charged issues of guns, crime and violence.

In a 5-4 opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia, the court struck down perhaps the nation's toughest gun law, a 1976 District of Columbia ordinance that effectively bans handguns and required that rifles be disassembled or disabled by trigger locks in the home.

The decision stopped short of invalidating other local, state and federal gun regulations. The court also declined to hand legislators a blueprint for permissible gun regulations, acknowledging that the contours of the Second Amendment right, like other constitutional rights, will have to be mapped in litigation over the years to come.

The Supreme Court last heard a Second Amendment case in 1939, when it upheld a federal ban on interstate transport of short-barreled shotguns. Since sawed-off shotguns had no "reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument," the court found then. Ever since, most courts have seen the amendment as providing for weapons possession in connection with service in a militia, or its modern descendant, the state-run National Guard.

SIRS Leading Issues (found inside SIRS Researcher) provides an excellent strategy for students to become more knowledgeable about the ongoing debate about the 2nd Amendment and gun rights vs. gun control.

Pathfinder for Gun Control Leading Issue
Click the Gun Control icon in the Pro vs. Con section, then click the My Analysis tab to start your students on using the unique five-step research and critical thinking process for this and all Leading Issues.

Leading Issues also provides four unique report/presentation models for students to use that were created specifically by ProQuest to integrate critical thinking and the five-step process.

Step 5 (of My Analysis): Apply your knowledge
Using the guidelines provided, apply what you've learned to one of the formats assigned by your teacher that are listed below:

• Guide to Writing a Research Paper
• Guide to Writing a Mini-Research Paper (Teacher guide also available)
• Guide to Creating a PowerPoint Presentation
• Guide to Creating a Mini-Debate Activity (Teacher guide also available)

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