WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Americans have a constitutional right to bear arms, ending a ban on owning handguns in the capital city in its first ruling on gun rights in 70 years. The court's 5-4 landmark decision - on whether the right to keep and bear arms is fundamentally an individual or collective right - said the city's law violated the second amendment of the US constitution which the justices said guaranteed citizens the right to keep guns at home for self-defence. "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," wrote Justice Antonin Scalia in the court's decision. He added that while the court took seriously the problem of handgun violence: "The constitution leaves the District of Columbia a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns. "The enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table. These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defence in the home."