Court considers county's right to regulate guns

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

A divided federal appeals court wrestled Thursday with potentially the most important gun case in its history, a dispute over a firearms ban at the Alameda County Fairgrounds that has expanded into a constitutional battle over state and local authority to regulate gun possession.

Some judges on an 11-member panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals appeared to agree with gun-rights advocates that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, recently interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court to protect an individual's right to own guns, is binding on states and can be used to challenge the county ordinance.

Others noted that the high court has never overturned its own 19th century rulings that said the Second Amendment applies only to the federal government. And one judge suggested the court should uphold the ordinance as a valid public safety measure without deciding the constitutional issue.

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