| McDonald v. City of Chicago | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Argued March 2, 2010 Decided June 28, 2010 | |
| Full case name | Otis McDonald, et al. v. City of Chicago, Illinois, et al. |
| Docket no. | 08-1521 |
| Citations | 561U.S.742 (more) 130 S. Ct. 3020; 177L. Ed. 2d 894 |
| Argument | Oral argument |
| Opinion announcement | Opinion announcement |
| Decision | Opinion |
| Case history | |
| Prior | Judgment for defendants, 617F. Supp. 2d752 (N.D. Ill. 2008), aff'd, 567F.3d856 (7th Cir. 2009), cert. granted,557 U.S. 965 (2009). |
| Holding | |
| Theright to keep and bear arms for self defense in one's home is protected under theSecond Amendment, and is incorporated against the states through theDue Process Clause of theFourteenth Amendment. United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed and remanded. | |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Alito (Parts I, II–A, II–B, II–D, III–A, and III–B), joined by Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas |
| Plurality | Alito (Parts II–C, IV, and V), joined by Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy |
| Concurrence | Scalia |
| Concurrence | Thomas (in part and in judgment) |
| Dissent | Stevens |
| Dissent | Breyer, joined by Ginsburg, Sotomayor |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amends. II,XIV | |
This case overturned a previous ruling or rulings | |
| |
McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010), was alandmark[1] decision of theSupreme Court of the United States that found that the right of an individual to "keep and bear arms", as protected under theSecond Amendment, isincorporated by theFourteenth Amendment and is thereby enforceable against thestates. The decision cleared up the uncertainty left in the wake ofDistrict of Columbia v. Heller (2008) as to the scope ofgun rights in regard to the states.
Initially, theCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit had upheld a Chicago ordinance banning the possession of handguns as well as other gun regulations affecting rifles and shotguns, citingUnited States v. Cruikshank (1876),Presser v. Illinois (1886), andMiller v. Texas (1894).[2] The petition for certiorari was filed byAlan Gura, the attorney who had successfully arguedHeller, and Chicago-area attorney David G. Sigale.[3] TheSecond Amendment Foundation and theIllinois State Rifle Association sponsored the litigation on behalf of several Chicago residents, including retiree Otis McDonald.
Theoral arguments took place on March 2, 2010.[4][5] On June 28, 2010, the Supreme Court, in a 5–4 decision, reversed the Seventh Circuit's decision, holding that the Second Amendment was incorporated under the Fourteenth Amendment, thus protecting those rights from infringement by state and local governments.[6] It thenremanded the case back to the Seventh Circuit to resolve conflicts between certain Chicagogun restrictions and the Second Amendment.
InMcDonald v. City of Chicago,Chicago resident Otis McDonald, a 76-year-old retired maintenance engineer, had lived in theMorgan Park neighborhood since buying a house there in 1971.[7] McDonald described the decline of his neighborhood and claimed it was being taken over bygangs anddrug dealers. His lawn was regularly littered with refuse, and his home and garage had been broken into a combined five times, the most recent robbery being committed by a man whom McDonald recognized from his own neighborhood.[7] As an experienced hunter, McDonald legally owned shotguns but believed them to be too unwieldy in the event of a robbery and so he wanted to purchase a handgun for personal home defense. Chicago's requirement that all firearms in the city be registered but its refusal of all handgun registrations since 1982, when a citywide handgun ban was passed, made him unable to own a handgun legally. As a result, he joined three other Chicago residents in 2008 in filing a lawsuit that becameMcDonald v. City of Chicago.[7]
Despite being consolidated at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh 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 Second Amendment Foundation brought the McDonald case to the Supreme Court with its lead attorney Alan Gura. The cases were appealed separately to the U.S. Supreme Court.[8]
McDonald challenged four broad aspects of Chicago's gun registration law, which, according to the plaintiffs:[9]
All of the post-Heller cases, includingMcDonald,NRA v. Chicago,Nordyke andMaloney, 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 calledselective 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 caseDuncan v. Louisiana,391 U.S.145 (1968).[citation needed]
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 theSlaughter-House Cases,83 U.S.36 (1873).Slaughter-House determined that the 14th Amendment'sPrivileges or Immunities Clause did not apply theBill 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 to the states.[10][11]
In attempting to overturnSlaughter-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 ifSlaughter-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.[12][13][14]
In his concurring opinion,Justice Thomas criticized theSlaughter-House andCruikshank decisions,[15] proposing that "the right to keep and bear arms is a privilege of American citizenship that applies to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment'sPrivileges or Immunities Clause."[16]
Thirty-threeamici curiae ("friends of the court") briefs for this case were filed with the Clerk of the Supreme Court.[17]
One of these briefs was filed by U.S. senatorsKay Bailey Hutchison (R, TX) andJon Tester (D, MT) and U.S. representativesMark Souder (R, IN) andMike 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.[18] The brief was signed by 58 senators and 251 representatives, more members of Congress than anyamicus curiae brief in history.[19] Moreover, thirty-two states under the aegis of Texas (and California independently) also filedamici curiae.[20]
InPeople v. Aguilar (2013), theIllinois Supreme Court summed up the central Second Amendment findings inMcDonald:
Two years later, inMcDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. ___, ___, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 3050 (2010), the Supreme Court held that the second amendment right recognized inHeller is fully applicable to the states through the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment. In so holding, the Court reiterated that "the Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense" (id. at ___, 130 S. Ct. at 3026); that "individual self-defense is 'thecentral component' of the Second Amendment right" (emphasis in original) (id. at ___, 130 S. Ct. at 3036 (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 599)); and that "[s]elf-defense is a basic right, recognized by many legal systems from ancient times to the present day" (id. at ___, 130 S. Ct. at 3036).[21]
InUnited States v. Rahimi (2024) the Supreme Court stated "that the right to keep and bear arms is among the "fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty."McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 778 (2010)."[22]
The majority agreed that theFourteenth Amendment incorporates theSecond Amendment right recognized inHeller, but was split on the rationale. Writing for four members of the court,Justice Alito found that theDue Process Clause incorporates that right against the States.[23] While joining most of the rest of Alito's opinion, Justice Thomas, in his concurrence, concluded that the right to bear arms is incorporated only on alternative grounds, namely through thePrivileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.[24] Alito also reaffirmed, in part of the opinion for four justices, that certain firearms restrictions mentioned inDistrict of Columbia v. Heller are assumed permissible and not directly dealt with in this case.[25]Such restrictions include those to "prohibit ... 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. CitingCruikshank, Stevens wrote, "The so-called incorporation question was squarely and, in my view, correctly resolved in the late 19th century." In addition, he argued against incorporation, taking issue with the methodology of the majority opinions.[citation needed]
Justice Breyer wrote, "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.'"[26]
The Court's ruling was received favorably by both theNational Rifle Association of America[27] and theBrady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.[28] Each issued public statements indicating that they felt 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.[29] In a discussion on the day of the rulingWayne LaPierre of the NRA andPaul Helmke of the Brady Center both agreed that the Court's ruling ruled out bans on handguns which are to be used for "lawful purposes" such as self-protection in the home. But as to the general question of gun laws not covered inMcDonald, a large number of lawsuits are needed to determine whether any other existing State gun regulations might also be unconstitutional. McDonald, supra., stated that the "2nd Amendment is 'fully applicable' to all of the States", but Wayne LaPierre expressed caution that the NRA has "a lot of work ahead" attempting to overturn other gun control regulations not covered byMcDonald. Helmke predicted that in that regard the NRA was "going to lose most of those lawsuits".[30]
The day afterHeller was filed, the National Rifle Association filed five similar lawsuits challenging local gun bans:
Other notable post-Heller Second Amendment court cases include:
