Don't Look for a Last Word in America's Gun Debate

In retrospect, it was unrealistic to think that our deep divide on guns might be bridged by a Supreme Court decision, especially one that both affirms the constitutional right to bear arms and acknowledges that government may regulate access to firearms. Some people are raised to believe that a gun is this nation's most important symbol of individual freedom. Others grow up believing that easy access to firearms is a bizarre exception to this country's claim to an advanced state of civilization.

The cultural stalemate has created a political reality: No one who has been elected to national office is going to make major changes in gun policy. They don't want to touch the subject, and the room to maneuver is impossibly narrow.

Even Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the NRA, says the rush to buy guns isn't necessarily justified. "You've really had a sea change in the center of the Democratic Party," he says. "A lot of cooler heads in the Democratic Party are going to say, 'Don't take us into that battle again.' "

The main action will return to the courts, where advocates will battle over regulations designed to keep guns away from dangerous people.

The District seems intent on forcing a courtroom confrontation it is likely to lose. Although he says the object is not to get sued, Mendelson concedes that the city is trying to limit access to guns. "If we can't have a complete ban, we want to try to preclude ownership by the people most likely to commit gun violence," he says.

The winners in all this are the gun industry, the lawyers who will fight over regulations and the academics who in a couple of years will be asked to parse whether new gun violence stemmed from this surge in sales or from the nation's economic woes. The result will be what guns always produce: more questions -- part of a puzzle that, it should be clear by now, no court will ever solve.

E-mail: marcfisher@washpost.com