With a Supreme Court ruling this term affirming a Second Amendment right for individuals to keep handguns, the focus of those who seek to limit gun violence now shifts to laws dealing with background checks, keeping track of who has access to weapons and other piecemeal restrictions.

The strategies ahead echo calls dating as far back as a 1975 statement from the U.S. bishops' Committee on Social Development and World Peace, as it was then known, calling for a national firearms policy out of pastoral concern over the human cost of gun violence.

Now, however, technology has changed some of the specifics. Efforts from the '70s that focused on licensing and registration have given way to legislation in the '00s mandating mechanisms that stamp cartridges with guns' serial numbers and guns that only fire if the weapon's key matches the owner's fingerprint. Neither technology is yet in use, but both are expected to be widely available within a few years, according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

In a 5-4 ruling June 26, the court overturned a District of Columbia law banning handguns in the city. The ruling marked the first time since 1939 that the court spoke directly on the scope of the Second Amendment.

The decision in District of Columbia v. Heller was hailed as a clear-cut victory by organizations such as the National Rifle Association and the St. Gabriel Possenti Society, which advocates for a patron saint of "handgunners."

"All law-abiding Americans have a fundamental, God-given right to defend themselves in their homes," said a statement from NRA chief lobbyist Chris W. Cox. "Washington, D.C., must now respect that right."

The St. Gabriel Possenti Society, which advocates that the 19th-century Italian seminarian be designated patron of those who use handguns, noted in a statement from its founder and chairman, John M. Snyder, that all of the justices in the decision's majority are Catholic. The opinion was written by Justice Antonin Scalia and joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

He said the Heller ruling was "a definitive statement in favor of the right to use handguns for self-defense." And he took issue with how the U.S. church has supported gun controls such as regulations on the manufacture, importation and sale of handguns.

"In the United States institutional Catholic Church leaders have been on the wrong side" of the issue of the right to bear arms for self-defense, Snyder said. "Individual clergy, including bishops, also have gone off the deep end on this issue."

Since the bishops' 1975 statement, "Handgun Violence: A Threat to Life," the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has weighed in on assorted gun-related legislation, for example, supporting a federal ban on assault weapons. The ban was passed by Congress in 1994, but was allowed to expire in 2005 and has not been renewed.

Ray Zaccaro, communications director for Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., said the Heller ruling actually has his boss and other supporters of gun control laws feeling optimistic. McCarthy was elected to Congress in 1997 after stepping into politics on the issue of gun control. Her husband, Dennis, was killed and their son, Kevin, was severely injured when Colin Ferguson opened fire on random passengers on a Long Island Railroad commuter train Dec. 7, 1993.

Zaccaro and representatives of the Brady campaign cited one section of Scalia's ruling as reason for optimism about now passing various types of gun control.

"Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited," Scalia wrote. "Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms."

Scalia also recognized "another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms," namely the prohibition of carrying "dangerous and unusual weapons."

Zaccaro said that wording could clear the path for long-pending legislation to finally move through Congress. For instance, he said there might be new congressional support for closing the "gun-show loophole" that allows weapons sales at gun shows. Other proposals that may be easier to pass include requirements for background checks of those who sell guns, restricting bulk sales of weapons and reinstating the ban on assault weapons, he said.

"We will look at the pieces that get to the larger goal of diminishing gun violence," Zaccaro said.

Daniel Vice, senior attorney for the Brady campaign, said the Supreme Court ruling "is fundamentally changing the debate by taking the extremes off the table." Scalia's opinion negated the argument that any law regulating the ownership of guns was a "slippery slope" toward a total ban on guns, he said. Yet it also made it clear the court sees some restrictions as constitutional.

He said the ruling "moves away from the extremes toward common sense," and puts debate about gun regulations "in the middle ground."

He was less optimistic that Congress would move significant gun legislation this late in an election year. For the next term, he admitted "a lot will depend on who is elected to Congress and the White House."

---CNS