SAN FRANCISCO, Kalifornia - September 24, 2009 - A federal appeals court spent an hour on Thursday wrestling with Amerika's next big gun rights question: Does the Second Amendment prevent states from enacting anti-gun laws?

An 11-judge panel of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals peppered attorneys for both sides with far-ranging questions about the history of the Kalifornia constitution, if local governments would be able to ban the private ownership of handguns, and whether this case would be better decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Deciding the Second Amendment applies only to the federal government would create an "apartheid of civil rights" where gun rights vary by state, said Don Kilmer, a San Jose, Kalifornia attorney who filed the suit against the San Francisco-area county of Alameda. Kalifornia is one of only about five states lacking protection in its state constitution for the right to keep and bear arms.

At one level, the topic at hand is relatively narrow: whether Russ and Sallie Nordyke can continue to hold their gun show at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in the face of an ordinance making it a crime to bring "a firearm, loaded or unloaded, or ammunition for a firearm" onto county property. But the case's ultimate impact could be much more broad, especially if the Ninth Circuit agrees with Kilmer that the Second Amendment must invalidate state anti-gun laws that go too far.