SECOND AMENDMENT - GUN CONTROL

United States Supreme Court

McDonald v. City of Chicago, No. 08-1521 (June 28, 2010).

OVERVIEW: A complete ban on handguns by state and/or local governments is unconstitutional because the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment makes the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms fully applicable to the States and their political subdivisions.

SUMMARY: The plaintiffs/petitioners are residents of Chicago and Oak Park, respectively, and they would like to own handguns to protect themselves, their homes, and their families. However, Chicago and Oak Park effectively ban handguns within their corporate limits. The petitioners sued these municipalities claiming that their handgun bans violate the Second Amendment pursuant to the United States Supreme Court's decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, 128 S.Ct. 2783 (2008). Following the only precedent available at the time, the federal district court and the Seventh Circuit federal appeals court ruled in favor of the municipalities. The lower courts found that the existing precedent was that the Second Amendment did not yet apply to the states or their political subdivisions.

The United States Supreme Court reversed the Seventh Circuit and remanded the matter. Following its ruling in Heller -- which held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a handgun in the home for the purpose of self-defense, but the ruling only applied to a federal jurisdiction -- the Supreme Court in this case held that the ruling in Heller also applies to the States, and hence their political subdivisions, through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Thus, like the First Amendment, the Supreme Court incorporated the protections of the Second Amendment enunciated in Heller to the Bill of Rights. As such, a complete ban on handguns by either state or local governments violates the Second Amendment.