The Supreme Court just finished the Term that began in October 2009, and it went out with a bang. On Monday, it announced what was perhaps the most-anticipated opinion of the year, McDonald v. City of Chicago. The genesis for McDonald was District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. __ (2008), the case in which the Court determined that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms, not merely a right to bear arms as part of service in a "militia." Heller invalidated what amounted to a total ban on home handgun possession in the District of Columbia. The next step for advocates of gun rights was to determine whether Heller applied to the states. The Supreme Court held many years ago that the Second Amendment applies only to the federal government and did not limit the power of state governments. United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875). But that was before the Court began the process of "selective incorporation," i.e., deeming some components of the Bill of Rights so essential to "due process" that they apply to state governments under the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee that no state shall "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." So the NRA and several citizens filed suit, challenging de facto handgun bans in the cities of Chicago and Oak Park, Illinois. Relying on Cruikshank and similar cases, the federal district court and the Seventh Circuit upheld the bans. The Supreme Court agreed to review the [...]
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