When District lawyers face the Supreme Court in March to defend the city’s ban on handguns, they’ll not only be fighting to save a local policy — they’ll also be asking the court to decide whether the Second Amendment protects gun ownership in an individual capacity or only under the auspices of a state-run militia.

Last Friday the District submitted its brief to the court, laying out in 79 pages why the District needs the ban and why the ban is consistent with a historical reading of the Second Amendment. “The primary concerns that animated those who supported the Second Amendment were that a federal standing army would prove tyrannical and that the power given to the federal government in the Constitution’s Militia Clauses could enable it only to federalize, but also to disarm state militias,” reads the brief. “There is no suggestion that the need to protect private uses of weapons against federal intrusion ever animated the adoption of the Second Amendment.” The brief also argues that in allowing residents to own rifles and shotguns, the city’s gun laws are no more restrictive than other reasonable limits on other constitutional rights that the court has allowed. It similarly claims that the Second Amendment only applies to federal legislation; states are allowed to restrict gun ownership.