McDonald v. Chicago: 2nd Amendment Incorporated

Washington, D.C. also passed a revised set of regulations after the Heller decision. Heller and his attorneys immediately filed a new suit challenging the revised regulations. So far federal courts have been deciding in favor of Washington, D.C. in the new Heller suit.

Not quite a mockery of what they've said so far.

Really all the court has done is rule first that it is an individual right, and second that the right applies to all levels of government. The rulings as to what exactly the right does and does not cover are yet to come.

There will be an effort to get the to court to rule that the Second Amendment protects the right to carry a gun in public. If the effort is successful, then this law will be struck down. This may even be the law they challenge to get the case back before the court (they will try to pick the most draconian version of such a prohibition when they make their challenge).

Really we wanted to get incorporation set in stone before we started pushing out the boundaries of the right.

D.C. should be having more laws overturned though once it gets back to the Supreme Court. As I recall, their machinegun ban defines semi-auto handguns as machineguns and outlaws them. I assume they will be able to successfully claim a compelling reason for banning machineguns, but there is no possible way that law could be construed as narrowly tailored.

NPR has a short article appropriate for posting here that summarizes the Chicago ordinance. It is on their 1st page under "More news."
Perhaps someone could move it to this thread. Thanks.

You know...I've never had the desire to buy another handgun, that is until the city of Chicago told me that I could only buy 1 per month. Now I want to buy a few more, since it's restricted.

Strange how that works.

Maybe Daley thinks the Constitution reads, "Keep barely armed" -- instead of "keep and bear arms".

This column by Courtland Milloy of The Washington Post, appeared on the Editorial Page of The Austin American Statesman newspaper today regarding Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' surprise written opinion supporting the right to bear arms. You have to love it!

IN SUPPORT OF GUN RIGHTS FOR BLACKS

He hardly ever speaks during oral arguments, often appearing asleep on the bench. But in his written opinion supporting the right to bear arms, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas roared to life.

Referring to the disarming of blacks during the post-Reconstruction era, Thomas wrote: "It was the 'duty' of white citizen patrols to search negro houses and other suspected places for firearms. If they found any firearms the patrols were to take the offending slave or free black 'to the nearest justice of the peace' whereupon he would be 'severely punished.' " Never again, Thomas says.

In a scorcher of an opinion that reads like a mix of black history lesson and Black Panther Party manifesto, he goes on to say, "Militias such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of the White Camellia, the White Brotherhood, the Pale Faces and the '78 Association spread terror among blacks...The use of firearms for self-defense was often the only way black citizens could protect themselves from mob violence."

This was no muttering from an Uncle Tom, as many black people have accused him of being. His advocacy for black self-defense is straight from the heart of Malcolm X. He even cites the slave revolts led by Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner -- implying that white America has long wanted to take guns away from black people out of fear that they would seek revenge for centuries of racial oppression.

Of course, Thomas's references to historic threats posed by white militias might have been dismissed if not for a resurgence of such groups in the year after Barack Obama's election as the nation's first black president.

And if their behavior turns as violent as their racist rhetoric often threatens, then Thomas will almost certainly go down in history as the nation's foremost black radical legal scholar.

Thomas, the only black justice, sided with the court's conservative majority in a 5-4 vote to give Otis McDonald, a 76-year-old black man from Chicago, the right to buy a handgun. In his lawsuit to repeal Chicago's restrictive handgun law, McDonald said he needed a gun to protect himself -- not from a white mob but from young black "gangbangers" who were terrorizing his suburban Chicago neighborhood.

Thomas agreed with McDonald, concluding that owning a gun is a fundamental part of a package of hard-won rights guaranteed to black people under the 14th Amendment. And just because some hooligans in Chicago or Washington, D.C. misuse firearms is no reason to give it up.

"In my view, the record makes plain that the Framers of the Privileges or Immunities Clause and the ratifying-era public understood -- just as the Framers of the Second Amendment did -- that the right to keep and bear arms was essential to the preservation of liberty," Thomas wrote. "The record makes equaly plain that they deemed this right necessary to include in the minimum baseline of federal rights that the Privileges or Immunities Clause established in the wake of the War over slavery."

Thomas made no mention of the black loss of life and liberty from handguns being wielded by other blacks. But he has made clear on other occasions that the problelm is not that there are too many guns in the black community, the problem is too many criminals.

He dismissed the cogent gun-control arguments of his retiring colleague, John Paul Stevens, conjuring up the abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens instead: "When it was first proposed to free the slaves and arm the blacks, did not half the nation tremble?"

Let 'em quake, Thomas appears to say.

From Frederick Douglass, Thomas writes: " 'The black man has never had the right either to keep or bear arms,' and that, until he does, 'the work of the Abolitionists was not finished.' "

Because of his conservative take on affirmative action and prisoners' rights, he has been cast as an uncouth African American who didn't understand black history, a dupe for arch conservative Justice Antonin Scalia and a man who couldn't think for himself.

What Thomas has created, however, is a legal defense of the Second Amendment so thoroughly original and starkly race-based that none of the white justices would even acknowledge it, as if it were some blank sheet crafted by an invisible man.

That ought to be a clue enough for black people that the document is at least worth a look. You may not agree with his conclusion, but there'll be no mistake about where he's coming from.

[/quote]But he has made clear on other occasions that the problelm is not that there are too many guns in the black community, the problem is too many criminals. [/quote]

Doesn't sound radical to me, and the second quote could be expanded way beyond the black community.

I, too, thought this paragraph rather odd. But, what Thomas did was to prove the legality of why he thinks this one black man should be able to own a gun for his own protection. He couldn't deny him that right, based on blacks being denied the right to protect themselves in the past.

[/quote]But he has made clear on other occasions that the problem is not that there are too many guns in the black community, the problem is too many criminals. [/quote]

But, otherwise, how would this black man protect himself, and his family?

Doesn't sound radical to me, and the second quote could be expanded way beyond the black community. [/quote]

I doubt that Thomas will go down in history as "the nation's most foremost black radical legal scholar." What he proved is he is a very clever man, and he presented the most unexpected reasoning of why he voted the way he did. Stunning, that's all.

Is this what you want?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128267575

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gU7WxRKpc8kl8FHMaAXz5zvrn-EwD9GN1SVG0

Chicago approves tough new handgun restrictions

By DON BABWIN

CHICAGO (AP) — The Chicago City Council on Friday approved what city officials say is the strictest handgun ordinance in the United States.

The 45-0 vote came four days after a Supreme Court ruling made it almost certain that Chicago's handgun ban would be overturned. The high court ruled Americans have a right to own a gun for self-defense anywhere they live.

The new city ordinance bans gun shops in Chicago and prohibits gun owners from stepping outside their homes, even onto their porches or garages, with a handgun. It will take effect in 10 days.

The ordinance also:

_ Limits the number of handguns residents can register to one per month and prohibit residents from having more than one handgun in operating order at any given time.

_ Requires residents in homes with children to keep them in lock boxes or equipped with trigger locks.

_ Requires prospective gun owners to take a four-hour class and one-hour training at a gun range. They would have to leave the city for training because Chicago prohibits new gun ranges and limits the use of existing ranges to police officers. Those restrictions were similar to those in an ordinance passed in Washington, D.C., after the high court struck down its ban two years ago.

_ Prohibits people from owning a gun if they were convicted of a violent crime, domestic violence or two or more convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Residents convicted of a gun offense would have to register with the police department.

_ Calls for the police department to maintain a registry of every handgun owner in the city, with the names and addresses to be made available to police officers, firefighters and other emergency responders.

Those who already have handguns in the city — which has been illegal since the city's ban was approved 28 years ago — would have 90 days to register those weapons, according to the proposed ordinance.

Residents convicted of violating the city's ordinance can face a fine up to $5,000 and be locked up for as long as 90 days for a first offense and a fine of up to $10,000 and as long as six months behind bars for subsequent convictions.

Though Monday's Supreme Court ruling did not specifically strike down Chicago's handgun ban, it ordered a federal appeals court to reconsider its ruling.

Mayor Richard Daley moved quickly to get a new ordinance in place and has indicated that he expects legal challenges to the new restrictions.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Thanks for posting that quick summary of the Chicago ordinance, oralloy. Chicago seems to be complying with the Supreme Court's concept but with some very restrictive rules. The one about allowing a gun provided it is kept inside the house certainly caught my eye. No taking it to Wal-mart, I guess.
This will be back in court soon, don't you think?

Pretty restrictive from a New Mexican perspective, but might at least provide a sense of security in one's own home. I'm wondering what effect the Supreme Court's decision might have on government sponsored housing. I think that was an issue a few years back.

It'll be back in court. They'll be suing to get the courts to rule that people have the right to carry a gun in public. But the next step will probably be to sue to get the courts to rule that the Second Amendment protects our right to have assault weapons.

(I don't know whether it will be too much to pursue both tracks at once, but I guess that's an option too.)

SO STIPULATED.





David

There is a federal case in California: SYKES and SECOND AMENDMENT FOUNDATION v. SACRAMENTO, which sues for enforcement of the right to bear arms in the streets. I 've heard that the federal judge upon whose docket this case reposes has stated that when the USSC applies the 2nd Amendment against the States (McDONALD), he will grant summary judgment in favor of freedom to bear arms in the streets of California.

I understand that a similar state of affairs exists in D.C.

We shoud see some FIREWORKS soon.





David

From HELLER:
" We start therefore with a strong presumption
that the Second Amendment right is exercised individually
and belongs to all Americans.

* * * Putting all of these textual elements together,
we find that they guarantee the individual right
to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation. "
[All emphasis has been added by David.]

A fair reading of the 2nd Amendment is not
that the Founders intended only that the defensive right
is limited to confrontation of burglars found while travelling
from your kitchen to your bedroom.

It is clear that the pro-freedom 5 member majority of the USSC
recognizes the right to carry guns in the streets.

Does anyone deny that ??





David

Gura sues North Carolina:
http://saf.org/viewpr-new.asp?id=329
http://saf.org/legal.action/nc.lawsuit/nc_complaint.pdf

Gura sues New York state:
http://saf.org/viewpr-new.asp?id=331
http://saf.org/legal.action/ny.lawsuit/kachalsky_complaint.pdf

Gura sues Maryland:
http://saf.org/viewpr-new.asp?id=334
http://saf.org/legal.action/md.lawsuit/complaint.pdf

Gura sues Chicago again:
http://saf.org/viewpr-new.asp?id=337
http://saf.org/legal.action/chicago2.lawsuit/complaint.pdf
http://saf.org/legal.action/chicago2.lawsuit/preliminary.injunction.pdf


Careful downloading the PDFs with the generic filename "complaint". You might want to give them a unique filename so as to not overwrite them.

I am eager to attend the 2nd Amendment Foundation 's
Gun Rights Policy Conference in San Francisco http://www.saf.org/
at the end of next month to study the foreseeable effects of HELLER and McDONALD

I am more specificly interested in Constitutional Carry,
wherein citizens can freely and legally carry concealed guns,
as in practice in Vermont, in Alaska and in Arizona,
soon to be joined by Kansas, Utah and Wyoming.





David

yes. Your property, your choice. Freedom is like that.

Well, that certainly WAS the case; that was UNQUESTIONED,
but since then encroachments were enacted against that,
such that u coud no longer exclude people based on criteria
that liberals in government decided, to wit:
u can 't exclude people from your property based on their religions,
nor their races, nor their sexual orientations, nor their ages
nor their marital statuses and several more criteria that I don 't remember at the moment.

IF property rights have been subordinated to THOSE considerations,
THEN private property is NO LONGER SACROSANCT;
how about the Constitutional rights of American citizens
who choose to carry their guns for defense of their lives & property ?????

R those Constitutional rights worth LESS than those of a Moslem
who takes his beliefs with him wherever he goes ?




David