WASHINGTON -- The US Supreme Court ruled Thursday that individual 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 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-defense.

"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 the court took seriously the problem of handgun violence in cities like Washington and said leaves the city "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-defense in the home," the court ruled.

President George W. Bush welcomed the ruling, saying he "strongly agrees with the Supreme Court's historic decision today that the second amendment protects the individual right of Americans to keep and bear arms.

"The president is also pleased that the court concluded that the (Washington) DC firearm laws violate that right," a White House statement said.

The ruling was a victory for gun rights advocates, but gun control proponents welcomed its endorsement of the regulation of firearms, saying it would help their cause.

The high court had never before issued a precise ruling on the interpretation of the second amendment, which states: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Washington, home to the White House and the US administration, has some of the toughest gun control laws in the country.

Private possession of handguns is strictly banned here, and any rifles or shotguns must be kept unloaded in homes or under a trigger lock.

City officials argued the ban, instituted in 1976, was necessary to stem rising gun violence, and that the second amendment protects gun rights for people associated with militias, not individuals.

The case, District of Columbia vs. Heller, was originally brought in 2003 by a federal building guard who carries a handgun on duty and wanted to keep it in his home for self-defense.

Alan Gura, the lead attorney for the plaintiff, questioned whether the city's gun ban curtailed crime, saying it had "accomplished nothing except to prevent law-abiding citizens from exercising their constitutional right to keep and bear arms."

The high court said the right to own guns was "not unlimited" and that its ruling did not cast doubt on laws prohibiting convicted federal criminals or mentally ill patients from keeping guns.

Bans on concealed weapons or on carrying firearms in sensitive places such as schools or government buildings remained legal, it said.

"This gun decision is a breath of fresh air from the US Supreme Court," said Jessica Echard of the conservative group Eagle Forum. "The majority of Americans see the absurdity of gun control and recognize the valuable self-defense function of guns."

But Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said the ruling made clear that "the constitution allows for reasonable restrictions on access to dangerous weapons."

"The court also rejected the absolutist misreading of the second amendment that some use to argue 'any gun, any time for anyone,' which many politicians have used as an excuse to do nothing about the scourge of gun violence in our country," he said.

Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty said the ruling was restricted to handguns in homes and did not prevent the city from strictly regulating or banning other types of firearms, or weapons carried outside of homes.

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said the Supreme Court had endorsed "the need for crime-ravaged communities to save their children from the violence that plagues our streets through common-sense, effective safety measures."

The Supreme Court last took up the issue in 1939, but its ruling on a case involving alleged bank robbers and registration of certain firearms did not directly address the question of the individual versus collective right to bear arms.