Va. AG to Ask High Court Rule on Right to Own Guns

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Attorney General Robert McDonnell plans to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that individuals have a constitutional right to own firearms.

McDonnell said Virginia will join other states in filing a brief in a legal challenge to the District of Columbia's ban on personal handgun ownership. The court will hear arguments in March and likely will decide by June whether the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is an individual or collective right. The ruling could have a sweeping impact on gun control laws nationwide.

"This is a very important case, perhaps the most important case in American history regarding the Second Amendment," McDonnell said Tuesday in a telephone conference call with reporters.

The city appealed a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that the handgun ban violates the Second Amendment and that gun ownership is an individual right.

McDonnell, a Republican, said Virginia will join in a friend-of-the-court brief being drafted by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to push for an interpretation that handgun ownership is an individual right.

If the court upholds the district's gun ban, it would open the door for more restrictions on gun ownership, McDonnell said.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, a Democrat, has not taken a position on the Supreme Court case, said Kaine spokesman Gordon Hickey.

"The governor generally supports Second Amendment rights, but that support doesn't exclude reasonable controls," Hickey said.

Kaine plans to push legislators to require private gun sellers to check buyers' criminal records, as licensed gun dealers are already required to do. A panel appointed by Kaine to investigate the Virginia Tech shootings recommended closing the so-called "gun show loophole."

Information from: The Roanoke Times

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)