| McDonald v. Chicago | ||||||
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Supreme Court of the United States |
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| Argued March 2, 2010 Decided June 28, 2010 |
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| Full case name | Otis McDonald, et al. v. City of Chicago, Illinois, et al. | |||||
| Docket nos. | 08-1521 | |||||
| Citations | 561 U. S. 3025 (2010) | |||||
| Prior history | Judgment for defendants, 617 F. Supp. 2d 752 (ND Ill. 2008), affirmed, 567 F. 3d 856 (CA7), cert. granted, 557 U. S. ___ (2009) | |||||
| Argument | Oral argument | |||||
| Holding | ||||||
| The Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms for self defense in one's home is fully applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed and remanded. | ||||||
| Court membership | ||||||
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| Case opinions | ||||||
| Majority | Alito, joined by Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy (all); Thomas (all except parts II-C, IV and V) | |||||
| Concurrence | Scalia | |||||
| Concurrence | Thomas | |||||
| Dissent | Stevens | |||||
| Dissent | Breyer, joined by Ginsburg, Sotomayor | |||||
| Laws applied | ||||||
| U.S. Const. amend. II, XIV | ||||||
McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 3025, 130 S.Ct. 3020 (2010), was a landmark[1] decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that determined whether the Second Amendment applies to the individual states. The Court held that the right of an individual to "keep and bear arms" protected by the Second Amendment is incorporated by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and applies to the states. The decision cleared up the uncertainty left in the wake of District of Columbia v. Heller as to the scope of gun rights in regard to the states.
On June 28, 2010, the Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit's decision in McDonald v. Chicago and remanded it back to Seventh Circuit to resolve conflicts between certain Chicago gun restrictions and the Second Amendment. The Court of Appeals had upheld a Chicago ordinance banning the possession of handguns as well as other gun regulations affecting rifles and shotguns, citing United States v. Cruikshank, Presser v. Illinois, and Miller v. Texas.[2] The petition for certiorari was filed by Alan Gura, the attorney who had successfully argued Heller, and Chicago-area attorney David G. Sigale.[3] The Second Amendment Foundation and the Illinois State Rifle Association sponsored the litigation on behalf of several Chicago residents, including retiree Otis McDonald.[4]
The Second Oral argument took place on March 2, 2010.[5][6] On June 28, 2010, in a 5-4 decision, the High Court held that the Second Amendment was incorporated under the Fourteenth Amendment, protecting those rights from local governments.[7]
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Despite being consolidated at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, the cases are different in scope in terms of the specific regulations challenged and the legal argument for applying the Second Amendment against state and local governments. The cases were appealed separately to the U.S. Supreme Court.[8]
The NRA case is focused on the fact that Chicago's gun registration laws do not allow the registration of handguns. In the District of Columbia v. Heller, "The Court also recognized a distinction between weapons "in common use at the time" and weapons that were considered dangerous and unusual..."[9]
McDonald challenges four broad aspects of Chicago's gun registration law, which, according to the plaintiffs:[10]
All of the post-Heller cases, including McDonald, NRA v. Chicago, Nordyke and Maloney, argued that the Second Amendment, in addition to applying to federal jurisdictions, should also be applied against state and local governments, using a judicial process called selective incorporation. Selective incorporation involves convincing the court that a right is "fundamental" by being “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty” or “deeply rooted in our nation’s history and traditions” as defined most recently in the Supreme Court case Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145 (1968).
In addition to claiming the Second Amendment should be incorporated through the selective incorporation process, McDonald is unique among post-Heller gun cases in that it asked the court to overturn the Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1873). Slaughter-House determined that the 14th Amendment's Privileges or Immunities Clause did not apply the Bill of Rights to the actions of states (and by extension, local governments). If it had been overturned, the Selective Incorporation process may have become unnecessary, since the entire Bill of Rights, including the 2nd Amendment, would arguably be applied against the states.[11] [12]
In attempting to overturn Slaughter-House, this case garnered the attention and support of both conservative and liberal legal scholars interested in its potential application in areas outside of firearms law. Their interest was that if Slaughter-House had been overturned, it would have been possible that constitutional guarantees such as the right to a jury in civil cases, right to a grand jury in felony cases, and other parts of the Bill of Rights, as well as future court rulings and existing federal precedent, not universally guaranteed in actions by the states, would have been applied against the states automatically.[13][14][15]
In his concurring opinion, Justice Thomas alone supported overturning the Slaughter-House and Cruikshank decisions,[16] proposing that "the right to keep and bear arms is a privilege of American citizenship that applies to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause."[17]
Thirty-three amici curiae ("friends of the court") briefs for this case were filed with the Clerk of the Supreme Court.[18]
One of these briefs was filed by U.S. senators Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R, TX) and Jon Tester (D, MT) and U.S. representatives Mark Souder (R, IN) and Mike Ross (D, AR) asking the Supreme Court to find in favor of the petitioners and rule that the Second Amendment does apply to the states.[19] The brief was signed by 58 senators and 251 representatives, more members of Congress than any amicus curiae brief in history.[20] Furthermore, thirty-two states under the aegis of Texas (and California independently) also filed amici curiae.[21]
In a plurality decision, Justice Alito concluded "that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment right recognized in Heller."[22] Writing a concurring opinion, Justice Thomas reached the same conclusion regarding the incorporation issue on different grounds: Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.[23] The plurality decision also re-affirmed that certain firearms restrictions mentioned in District of Columbia v. Heller are assumed permissible and not directly dealt with in this case.[24] Such restrictions include those "prohibit[ing]...the possession of firearms by felons or mentally ill," and "laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms" [25]
Justice Stevens wrote a lengthy dissenting opinion. Among his disagreements with the majority was the statement that incorporation was not at issue in this case. Citing Cruikshank, Stevens wrote, "The so-called incorporation question was squarely and, in my view, correctly resolved in the late 19th century." In addition, he argues against incorporation, taking issue with the methodology of the majority opinions.
Justice Breyers' dissent states, "In sum, the Framers did not write the Second Amendment in order to protect a private right of armed self defense. There has been, and is, no consensus that the right is, or was, “fundamental.” This statement is somewhat contradictory to the Heller decision.
The initial reactions of the Court's ruling were favorable from both the National Rifle Association[26] and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.[27] Both issued statements to the public that they feel were vindicated by the Court's holding. However, the court did not include a "clarification of the standard for review" as requested by the Brady group in their amicus brief.[28] In a discussion on the day of the ruling Wayne LaPierre of the NRA and Paul Helmke of the Brady Center both agreed that the Court's ruling protected specifically against bans on handguns for self protection in the home. But as to the general question of gun laws not covered in McDonald; a large number of lawsuits are needed in order to determine whether any other existing gun regulations might also be unconstitutional. Wayne LaPierre expressed caution that the NRA has "a lot of work ahead" attempting to overturn other gun control regulations not covered by McDonald, and Paul Helmke said that he expected that the NRA is "going to lose most of those lawsuits".[29]
The day after Heller was filed the National Rifle Association filed five similar lawsuits challenging local gun bans:
Other notable post-Heller Second Amendment court cases:
In Ezell v. Chicago, decided July 6, 2011, the Seventh Circuit reversed a district court decision that the post-McDonald measures adopted by the City of Chicago were constitutional. The Chicago law required firearms training in a shooting range in order to obtain a gun permit, but also banned shooting ranges within the City of Chicago. The City had argued that applicants could obtain their training at gun ranges in the suburbs. The opinion noted that Chicago could not infringe Second Amendment rights on the grounds that they could be exercised elsewhere, any more than it could infringe the right to freedom of speech on the grounds that citizens could speak elsewhere.