McDonald v. City of Chicago

Date: June 28, 2010

Citation: 561 US 742 (2010)

Issue: Second Amendment

Significance: In a 5–4 decision, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that the Second Amendment protection of the right to bear arms applied to states and localities. This decision did not overturn the relevant city ordinances but returned the case to the Seventh Circuit to decide that issue.

Background

In recent decades, the Second Amendment has been a hotly debated constitutional issue. Supporters of gun rights, such as the National Rifle Association, believe the right to bear arms is absolute and fundamental and decry any law limiting or restricting gun ownership as unconstitutional. Gun control advocates argue that laws that ban certain types of weapons or control how and to whom guns are sold can be passed to support a legitimate state interest in public safety.

The Supreme Court issued few Second Amendment rulings over the years. In two nineteenth-century decisions—United States v. Cruikshank (1876) and Presser v. Illinois (1886)—the Court ruled that the Second Amendment did not apply to state laws but only limited federal action. In United States v. Miller (1939), the Court upheld a federal law banning sawed-off shotguns on the grounds that these weapons were not part of any standard military arsenal and thus could not be protected under the Second Amendment.

After Miller, the Court did not rule directly on the Second Amendment again for decades. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), it stated that a District of Columbia law banning ownership of handguns was unconstitutional. The 5–4 ruling held that the Second Amendment applied because the law applied to the federal district. The majority opinion also allowed that the right to bear arms was not unlimited but that some restrictions could be applied.

Unsettled by the Heller decision was whether the right to bear arms applied to state and local laws. Testing that question, Chicago resident Otis McDonald and others sued Chicago for the right to own a handgun for self-protection, banned by city law. Other plaintiffs brought similar suits in Chicago and nearby Illinois cities. These suits were combined with McDonald’s. Based on the Cruikshank and Presser precedents, the laws were upheld by a federal district court and the court of appeals. McDonald appealed to the Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments in March 2010 and issued its decision in June.

Opinion of the Court

While Cruikshank and Presser both specifically excluded state law from Second Amendment protection, later Court decisions that did not involve the Second Amendment opened the possibility of that position being reversed. Those decisions incorporated, or applied, Bill of Rights protections to state law based on the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In addition to appealing on due process grounds, McDonald’s lawyers argued that the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applied. That clause states, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States" (Constitution—Amendments 11–27, Amend. XIV).

In a 5–4 decision, the Court ruled that the Second Amendment does indeed apply, although it did not technically overturn the city ordinance banning possession of handguns. The justices actually delivered several different opinions. Justice Samuel J. Alito, in the majority opinion, stated that "self-defense is a basic right" and that, in Heller, self-defense was sated as "the central component" of the Second Amendment right to bear arms. Further, Alito accepted the due process incorporation of this right to the states: "Unless considerations of [precedent] counsel otherwise, a provision of the Bill of Rights that protects a right that is fundamental from an American perspective applies equally to the Federal Government and the States."

Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a concurring opinion that agreed with the majority opinion but also addressed the arguments in the dissent from Justice John Paul Stevens. Justice Clarence Thomas concurred with the majority’s decision but also wrote his own opinion that accepted the argument that the law should be overturned based on the privileges and immunities clause.

Justice Stevens’s dissent held that the Cruikshank and Presser precedents still applied—the Second Amendment should not be incorporated against the states because it is not a liberty protected under the due process clause. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote another dissent, which justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor joined. Breyer said that the right to bear arms was not a "fundamental" right, and thus the majority’s application of the incorporation principle did not apply.

Impact

While the Court ruled that the Second Amendment did apply to the question raised by the Chicago and Oak Park laws, it did not actually overturn those laws. Instead, it sent the case back to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals to answer that question. Just four days after McDonald, however, the Chicago city council rescinded the law, replacing it with a new law. The new law put several limits on gun ownership and use, including a requirement that gun owners have a permit and take a gun safety course to gain that permit. Passing that course required at least one hour of practice at a firing range, but the law also banned all firing ranges from the city. Plaintiffs asked for an injunction to prevent enforcement of the new law on Second Amendment grounds. The district court turned down the request, but the Seventh Circuit granted it, stating that "the firing‐range ban implicates not only the right to train at a range but also the core Second Amendment right to possess firearms for self‐defense" (Ezell v. City of Chicago 49).

The Court’s decision in McDonald v. Chicago solidified judicial rejection of gun control laws, overturned the precedents established by Cruikshank and Presser, and opened the courts to a host of challenges to state and local gun control laws. The decision confirmed Heller’s blessing on laws banning convicted felons or the mentally ill from gun ownership and placing limits on the ability to carry firearms in government buildings and near schools. However, the Court did not specify what other limits were permissible.

Some of those questions were seemingly answered by lower federal courts in subsequent cases. In 2013, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals declared unconstitutional an Illinois law that made it illegal to carry firearms outside the home. In another District of Columbia case, Heller v. District of Columbia, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia struck down a DC law that limited gun owners to purchasing one gun a month. In 2015, the Supreme Court refused to accept a case involving an ordinance in Highland Park, Illinois, that banned semiautomatic weapons and guns with magazines that held many bullets. This action suggests the Court was willing to accept limits on the most dangerous weapons.

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