Prof. Doug Berman (Sentencing Law & Policy) has an interesting post on this, focusing on the six states that don’t have state constitutional right to keep and bear arms provisions. I would add to that list Massachusetts, which has a provision that has been interpreted as not securing an individual right, and Hawaii, which has […]
Tag Archives | McDonald v. City of Chicago
Non-Unanimous Criminal Juries
If I were a criminal defense lawyer in Oregon or Louisiana, I’d use McDonald as a reason to challenge those states’ practice of allowing non-unanimous criminal juries. In Apodaca v. Oregon (1972), the Supreme Court held that the Sixth Amendment requires unanimity for a verdict — but that the Fourteenth Amendment does not carry this […]
Constitutional Rights that Put Lives at Risk
In his dissent in McDonald, signed by three liberal justices, Justice Breyer argues that gun rights deserve little or no judicial protection at least in part because they put lives at risk: Unlike other forms of substantive liberty, the carrying of arms for that purpose [self-defense] often puts others’ lives at risk…. And the use […]
Predicting the Impact of McDonald
The Supreme Court has now incorporated the Second Amendment against the states. But the impact of that decision may turn out to be fairly limited. In most states, there will be little if any change in the actual extent of gun regulation. The ideologically divided nature of the Court’s decision suggests that the legal status […]
What Now for Limits on Gun Possession by 18-to-20-Year-Olds?
I suspect that even after McDonald, most gun controls will be upheld, either on the theory that certain kinds of gun possession are outside the scope of the Second Amendment as interpreted in Heller (e.g., bans on gun possession by felons), or on the theory that the gun control imposes only a slight burden on […]
McDonald v. City of Chicago and the Standard of Review for Gun Control Laws
I don’t have much that’s original or interesting to say about the historical and jurisprudential arguments made by the majority and the dissent in McDonald v. City of CHicago. But I did want to say a few words about the possible implications of McDonald. Let me begin with the question: How could McDonald affect the […]
Why Not the Privileges or Immunities Clause?
By Ilya Somin on June 28, 2010 4:04 pm in Constitutional History, Constitutional Theory, Guns, Originalism
In today’s Supreme Court decision incorporating the Second Amendment against the states, the four justice plurality opinion used the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to justify its ruling rather than the Privileges or Immunities Clause. As various commentators, including co-blogger Randy Barnett, have pointed out, it is strange that four conservative justices supposedly […]
Second Amendment Binds State and Local Governments, via the Fourteenth Amendment
So holds the Court in McDonald v. City of Chicago, by a 5-4 vote. The syllabus suggests that there were four votes (the five conservatives minus Justice Thomas) for the proposition that the Due Process Clause applies the Second Amendment to the states and their subdivisions; Justice Thomas concluded that it is the Privileges or […]
A very Gura Christmas
As part of our special Christmas and Hanukkah programming on the VC, here is a 50-minute podcast interview with Alan Gura. It’s all about McDonald v. Chicago, particularly about the meaning of the Privileges or Immunities clause and of the Due Process clause.
NRA brief in McDonald v. Chicago
By David Kopel on November 17, 2009 7:59 pm in Constitutional Theory, Guns, Originalism, Supreme Court
Last night, Orin noted the filing of the Petitioner’s brief in McDonald v. Chicago, the case that will decide whether the 14th Amendment makes the 2d Amendment applicable to state and local governments. As Orin noted, that brief is almost entirely devoted to incorporation under the Privileges or Immunities clause. It directly asks the Court […]
United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (Year?)
The Supreme Court will consider whether the Second Amendment should apply to the states, and thus whether to overrule United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1876). Or is it United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875)? Both citations are commonly used; HeinOnline reports that the 1875 date is given in roughly 60% of […]
Supreme Court Agrees To Decide Whether the Second Amendment Applies to the States
The Court has granted certiorari on this issue, in McDonald v. City of Chicago.