Opponents including the NRA say such a ban violates the constitutional right to bear arms, while Feinstein and other supporters that include law enforcement groups note the previous ban survived several legal challenges.

CNN: Senate panel agrees to new legislation on guns

Republican Senator Orrin Hatch said on Tuesday that he was "a strong supporter of the second amendment" - referring to a clause in the US Constitution on the right to bear arms.

BBC: Giffords implores Congress for gun control

The NRA, which is the public face of the powerful gun lobby, opposes many government limits on gun ownership as a violation of the constitutional right to bear arms.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

To decide the case, the justices had to rule directly on the meaning of the Second Amendment, a provision with only 27 words: 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.

NPR: Supreme Court Strikes Down D.C. Handgun Ban

They concluded that a secret army claiming the right to bear arms until Ireland was reunited had given up its weapons without securing its goal.

ECONOMIST: The IRA's arms: Out of sight, out of mines | The

The suit seeks a ruling that both provisions violate the constitution's Second Amendment right to bear arms and the 14th Amendment right to equal protection under the laws as well as injunctions stopping enforcement.

WSJ: Gun rights group files federal suit against NY law

Some have interpreted the Second Amendment's affirmation of the right to bear arms as a barrier to reasonable regulation.

CNN: Put reason back in America's gun debate

Foreign governments and nongovernmental organizations have made no secret of their desire to use the Convention on Small Arms as a means of overriding Americans' deeply cherished, if hotly contested, right to own and bear arms.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Center For Security Policy