Democratic presidential hopeful Steve Bullock on Wednesday said he believes a 2008 Supreme Court decision that said Americans have a constitutional right to have a gun for self-protection should stand.

Mr. Bullock, the governor of Montana, said the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling in the D.C. v. Heller case should not be overturned.

“No,” he told reporters after an appearance at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. “The false paradox we like to put it in is every one of our constitutional rights aren’t without limitation, and I think the Second Amendment certainly has limits on it.”

At the same time, the high court had also said the Second Amendment right is “not unlimited” and that it’s not a right to keep and carry any weapon for any purpose.

Mr. Bullock’s comments came after he had also voiced support for strengthening gun-purchase background checks and banning military-style, semiautomatic firearms, in the wake of the weekend shootings in Texas and Ohio that left more than 30 people dead.

In 2016, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton had said she disagreed with the Heller decision.

The late Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens had said in recently released memoirs that Heller was “unquestionably the most clearly incorrect decision that the court announced during my tenure on the bench.”

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