A little more than a year separates when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District Circuit first called the District’s gun laws unconstitutional, and the final test those laws will face today before the U.S. Supreme Court. And in a matter of hours, the case will have been heard, the audio of the proceedings will be released, and months of conjecture will fill the space until the justices actually issue a final ruling.

At stake is much more than the District’s gun laws. While the city’s restrictions on the ownership of handguns is the example that provoked the lawsuit that pushed the issue through the American legal system, the Supreme Court will focus its sights on a larger question — does the U.S. Constitution guarantee a collective or individual right to own a gun?

We’ve straddled both sides of the issue. While we think that some form of gun control is necessary in an urban environment, we also think that it’s about time that District officials honestly debated the merits and failings of their approach. And while we think that changes are certainly possible and necessary, we’ve strictly sided with making those changes locally and without undue pressure from the federal government.

Photo by Kelly Nigro