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Constitutional Law Keyed to Farber
McDonald v. City of Chicago
Citation:
McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 177 L.Ed.3d 894 (2010)Facts
In its ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court found that the Second Amendment protected individuals’ right to possess and carry weapons and struck down a District of Columbia law that prohibited residents from possessing firearms, including handguns, in their homes.
Following the decision, the plaintiffs in the present case filed suit alleging Chicago’s law similarly violated their rights. The named plaintiff was Otis McDonald; he legally owned several hunting rifles, but was prevented from owning a handgun under Chicago’s gun ordinance.
The federal district court rejected McDonald’s claims that the ban was unconstitutional, noting that prior Supreme Court cases had explicitly refrained from deciding whether the Second Amendment applied to the states. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision, relying on three 19th-century cases that interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment‘s privileges and immunities clause.
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