In the coming weeks District officials will find out whether a Court of Appeals decision that found the city’s gun laws unconstitutional will stand or whether the U.S. Supreme Court will take up Mayor Adrian Fenty’s appeal.

According to SCOTUSBlog, the justices of the Supreme Court will debate whether or not to take the case on November 9. Should they choose to, the two sides would argue before the court in February or March; otherwise, by mid-November city officials would be faced with the unenviable task of re-writing the District’s restrictive gun laws to square with the decision handed down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District Circuit in March. That decision found that the city’s ban on handguns was unconstitutional.

Much has been made of the city’s brief to the Supreme Court, which attempts to dodge the larger question of whether or not the Second Amendment confers an individual right to own a gun (as opposed to a collective right, which is the standing wisdom) and instead limit the court to deciding whether or not a city with a history of violent crime can act to limit the ownership of certain guns for the larger public interest. Gun rights activists are hoping the court will instead take up the larger issue and finally decide what exactly the Second Amendment protects. Ultimately, should the Supreme Court decide to hear the case, they will announce what exactly it is they will be considering — the city’s more narrow question on the right to impose restrictions on ownership or the other side’s broader interpretation of the intent of the amendment. Of course, the court could blend the two.

We’re still mixed on what would be the better blessing for the District — for the court to grant their appeal or to just turn it down. On the one hand, if the justices voted to take the case, the District would at least have a chance to save its gun laws, but at the expense of a monster case that could well reshape the national debate on gun control. On the other, should the court choose not to hear it, the city will have to deal with the more immediate problem of re-writing their gun restrictions, but other urban areas won’t be forced to scrap their own gun regulations.