In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court ruled June 27 that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution explicitly protects Americans’ right to own firearms for self-defense.

The 5-4 decision ends decades of debate on the meaning of the amendment. The court had not heard a case directly testing the amendment’s scope since 1939.

The case, District of Columbia v. Heller, came about after Dick Anthony Heller, 66, an armed security guard, sued the district after it rejected his application to keep a handgun at his home. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in Heller’s favor and struck down the district’s ban on handguns. The district appealed that decision to the Supreme Court. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a 64-page majority opinion and explained why history was on his side.

“By the time of the founding (of this country), the right to have arms had become fundamental for English subjects,” he said. “There seems to us no doubt, on the basis of both text and history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms.”

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote a 46-page dissent that accused Scalia of spinning history.

The Second Amendment states that “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.”

Stevens wrote that the right to own guns for the purpose of maintaining a well-regulated militia does not include a right to “use guns for nonmilitary purposes like hunting and personal self-defense.”

Former Graham County Sheriff Richard Mack said he was pleased with the court’s decision. The court previously ruled in Mack’s favor in 1997 when he challenged the legality of some aspects of the Brady Act.

The Brady Handgun Vio-lence Prevention Act was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on Nov. 30, 1993. The law required chief law enforcement officers to perform background checks on an interim basis on persons buying handguns until the federal government’s system was up and running. Mack believed requiring local law enforcement to perform the background checks was unconstitutional.

“After fighting and being involved in the gun rights cause, I was so elated the Supreme Court addressed the issue,” he said. “It’s a little unsettling and a little scary (however), that there are four judges that don’t understand the Second Amendment.”

When asked if he thought the notion of a civilian militia was outdated, Mack said he would have them all the time when he was sheriff.

“I had posses when I was sheriff, and Joe Arpaio has them too,” he said. “To say a militia is obsolete or no longer needed is just ludicrous.”