The Supreme Court decided today that people do, in fact, have a Second Amendment right to bear arms:

The Supreme Court ruled for the first time Monday that the Second Amendment provides all Americans a fundamental right to bear arms, a long-sought victory for gun rights advocates who have chafed at federal, state and local efforts to restrict gun ownership.

The court was considering a restrictive handgun law in Chicago and one of its suburbs that was similar to the District law that it ruled against in 2008. The 5 to 4 decision does not strike any other gun control measures currently in place, but it provides a legal basis for challenges across the country where gun owners think that government has been too restrictive.

“It is clear that the Framers . . . counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote for the conservatives on the court.

There aren’t too many places in America where gun control laws are as restrictive as Chicago, and as it says above, this ruling doesn’t strike down those controls. What it does is provide a foundation for legal arguments against those restrictive controls.

It’s an important win for civil liberties.