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7/2/2008 3:34 AM

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If only the framers of the Bill of Rights had been more precise about the language of the Second Amendment, they might have prevented one of the most heated debates in American politics.

The amendment reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Does that mean that the right to be armed is tied to membership in a state militia? Or does it mean that every citizen should be armed so the state will have a ready poll of members should it have to form a militia?

The Supreme Court finally ruled on the question last week, declaring that bearing arms is a personal right. The decision was cheered by gun rights activists and bemoaned by gun control groups. Both sides predicted that the ruling would spawn additional legal challenges to restrictions on guns.

They may be speaking too soon. Justice Anton Scalia, who wrote the opinion for the 5-4 majority of the court, qualified the ruling: "Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the possessions of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of firearms."

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In other words, the right may adhere in individuals independent of the need to keep public order, but it's not so absolute that government can't put reasonable controls on it. The First Amendment always has been read as having the same sort of limits. It guarantees freedom of religion, but if your religion tells you to cook people and eat them for lunch, your freedom can be taken from you. The amendment guarantees freedom of speech and of the press, but there are laws against slander and libel.

The court addressed a Washington, D.C., law that virtually outlawed the possession of handguns - in the very city in the country where law-abiding people might especially want to keep a gun in the house for self-defense. (The gun-rights people are correct that the criminals don't care about laws governing guns or anything else for that matter; that's the nature of their business. In fact, you could argue that they have a vested interest in a disarmed population.)

The majority did not say there is a right to possess any type of weapon, including the kind of guns the founders could never have imagined. That's an important point when there are people out there who would have bazookas and rocket launchers if they could.

Tom Teepen, a columnist for Cox News Service, saw an actual benefit in the ruling for gun control groups, that "the gun lobby has been shorn of one of its most lurid and panic-inducing claims, the slippery-slope argument that has had the NRA et al. yelling for decades that every gun-control proposal would lead - and is even meant to lead - to government gun-confiscation." The court has said that can't happen.

Of course, as Teepen also points out, "as a matter of practical politics, any broad barrier to firearms ownership has been off the table all along ... Outside a few large cities the electorate wouldn't stand for it."

The ruling doesn't answer all questions. It sets a precedent for lower courts to follow, and it will be interesting to see what conclusions they may draw in deciding other cases. But for once, we have an authoritative interpretation of the Second Amendment.

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