U.S. appeals court upholds right to carry gun in public

A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment protects the right to openly carry a gun in public for self-defense, rejecting a claim by Hawaii officials that the right only applies to guns kept at home. 

The ruling by a three-judge panel on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, makes the San Francisco-based court the sixth U.S. circuit court to interpret the Second Amendment this way and could set the issue on a path toward the U.S. Supreme Court, which has not taken up a major gun rights case since 2010. 

The extent of the right to gun ownership is one of the most hotly contested debates in the United States, where mass shootings have become almost commonplace.