Today, Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC-10) released the following statement after the Supreme Court heard arguments for District of Columbia v. Heller, a landmark case that will have a major impact on the right to bear arms in the United States.

“The right to bear arms is a basic, fundamental right in this country. I hope the Supreme Court will take this opportunity to make clear that this right is guaranteed to every individual citizen by the Second Amendment. It is immoral for any government to deprive people of the right to defend themselves and their families.”

In keeping with his strong support for Second Amendment rights, Congressman McHenry co-signed an amicus curiae brief submitted to the Court by several lawmakers urging protection of the right to bear arms.

The Supreme Court has not conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment since its ratification in 1791. 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.”

The basic issue for the justices in Heller is whether the amendment protects an individual’s right to own guns or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia.

Since 1976, Washington, D.C. has enforced the most prohibitive gun ban of any American city, when the City Council banned handguns and required rifles and shotguns to be registered, stored unloaded, and either locked or disassembled.

In the Heller case, residents of the District sued the city on grounds that the restrictive gun ban infringes on their Constitutional freedoms. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled last March that the District’s gun bans violate the Constitution. At the time, the majority opinion said that the D.C. gun ban, “amounts to a complete prohibition on the lawful use of handguns for self-defense. As such, we hold it unconstitutional.”

The last Supreme Court ruling on the topic came in 1939 in U.S. v. Miller, which involved a sawed-off shotgun. Constitutional scholars disagree over what that case means but agree it did not squarely answer the question of individual versus collective rights.