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Earlier posts I've made on this topic:
Link,
Link.
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Should the federal government be able to tell a state (or in this case DC) that it can't ban guns?
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Better question, isnt there a pretty big difference between "a state" and "DC?" I'm embarrassed to say that I live in DC and I dont know the answer.
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In this case, its a huge difference. The 2nd Amendment has never been "incorporated" by the Supreme Court, meaning that it does not apply to state and local laws. If the Supreme Court rules that handgun bans are unconstitutional, most gun laws will remain on the books unless they take the additional step of incorporating the 2nd Amendment. Since the case doesn't deal directly with State laws, I doubt they will incorporate the 2nd Amendment here. I also suspect the reason they chose this case to hear over all of the other cases seeking to implement the 2nd (there are a lot of them) is that it deals specically with federal law as opposed to state law.
Regarding the status of DC, the local government is a wholly owned subsidiary of Congress. For most of the nation's history, Congress doubled as the DC City Council. Only recently has Congress allowed a degree of autonomy by allowing DC citizens to elect their own City Council. However, they may alter or abolish the Council by statute.
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It's very clear why the First Amendment had to be incorporated, but I see nothing in the wording of the Second Amendment that would indicate it would need similar treatment. It says the right shall not be infringed. If it wasn't about guns, no one would argue it doesn't apply to everyone. Like, what's the point of the Bill of Rights, if they only apply to people without a lower form of government. I don't think a law that violated the Fifth Amendment would have flown with the Feds, even before the Civil War.