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 […]
Tag Archives | McDonald
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 […]
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 […]
Does the Cert Grant in McDonald Suggest the Court Will Rethink Slaughterhouse?
Those who expect the Supreme Court to rethink and perhaps overturn the Slaughterhouse cases in McDonald v. City of Chicago often look to the scope of the cert grant to justify that prediction. The Justices could have granted cert only on the question of whether the Due Process clause incorporates the Second Amendment. But they […]
McDonald v. Chicago and Gilbert & Sullivan: The hidden connection!
In March 1994, I was in the Georgetown Gilbert & Sullivan Society‘s production of Gilbert & Sullivan‘s operetta Patience. You can find a list of the Society’s past shows here; I was also in the same show the next time they produced it, in April 2007. Also, you can find the libretto of the show […]