The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of individual gun rights today, striking down Chicago’s 28-year-old handgun ban almost two years to the day after the Court struck down the D.C. gun ban.
The ruling in McDonald vs. Chicago is a major win for gun-rights activists who are thrilled to see an individual right to arms affirmed by the nation’s highest court once again. The D.C. ruling applied only to federal laws to curb gun ownership because of D.C.’s unique legal standing as a federal city. Today’s ruling affirms an individual’s right to gun ownership is a restraint on state and local laws as well.
The Supreme Court already has said that most of the guarantees in the Bill of Rights serve as a check on state and local, as well as federal, laws.
Samuel Alito wrote for the Court, which split along ideological lines, in a rather clinical, citation-heavy opinion.
Alito writes in part, “Self-defense is a basic right, recognized by many legal systems from ancient times to the present day, and in Heller, we held that individual self-defense is “the central component” of the Second Amendment right,” while allowing, as in Heller, for sensible gun ownership restrictions.
He also writes a long history of the Court’s evolving attitudes about whether Bill of Rights protections act as a restraint on state-level infringements.
Gun-control activists will resort to, as Alito might say, “doomsday” predictions of the blood that will run in the streets of Chicago because of this ruling. But there is no lack of blood running in the streets, now, in this allegedly gun-free paradise. It’s just that law-abiding citizens have no means of protecting themselves against the illegall firearms of the city’s criminals. Fully 54 people were shot in Chicago last weekend:
The latest victims were found naked, shot to death and lying face down on railroad property near West 91st Street and South Holland Road on the South Side about 8:50 a.m Monday, according to a Calumet Area sergeant. Both were shot at some point Sunday night.
Now, Otis McDonald, a 76-year-old South Side Democrat who has been threatened with violence by drug dealers for trying to tame his tough neigborhood, will not be the only one without a weapon. This is what he had to say in March, when the case was being argued:
Otis McDonald having a gun will not make Chicago any more dangerous, but it will make Otis McDonald a lot safer, so that he can continue his work to make his neighborhood safer for everyone.
Update: Libertarians on the verdict.
