US top court nominee accepts gun rights decision

WASHINGTON, July 14 (Reuters) - U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor said on Tuesday that she accepted the high court's ruling last year that an individual's right to own guns is guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the Constitution.

"I understand ... how important the right to bear arms is to many, many Americans," she told the Senate Judiciary Committee. "And I have friends who hunt. I understand the individual right fully that the Supreme Court recognized."

Sotomayor said she had cited the Supreme Court's decision in a ruling by a U.S. appeals court panel she was on that held that the right to keep and bear arms applied only to the federal government, and not to the states.

Federal appeals courts around the country have been divided on whether the ruling also applied to state laws, and the Supreme Court is expected to decide the issue during its upcoming term that starts in October.

Sotomayor said she would have an "open mind" on the gun rights issue. "I would not prejudge any question that came before me if I was a justice on the Supreme Court," she said. (Reporting by James Vicini, Editing by Sandra Maler)