The pro-gun majority in the House has voted to make it easier for residents of the nation's capital to buy and own firearms.

Democrats who favor gun rights joined Republicans in approving the measure backed by the National Rifle Association. It allows District of Columbia residents to possess semiautomatic handguns and eliminates rules that guns kept at home must be locked up and unloaded.

The House vote comes three months after the Supreme Court ruled that the District's three-decade-old ban on possessing handguns violated Second Amendment rights to bear arms.