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From this morning's USA TODAY, on the front page as the newspaper's Cover Story:
High court to define reach of gun-control laws
Does right to bear arms trump cities and states?
By Joan Biskupic USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — In 2008, when national gun rights advocates were looking for residents to challenge Chicago’s ban on handguns, Otis Mc-Donald was in effect looking for them. McDonald , 76, says he had seen his neighborhood on the far South Side of Chicago turn from bad to worse over the years with “gangbangers and drug dealers.”
“My wife and I are here alone all the time now,” says McDonald, a retired maintenance engineer, who with his wife, Laura, reared three children. “I’ve got burglar alarms hooked into the police department. I have a shotgun, but a handgun (would be) more handy for me to handle.”
McDonald had driven down to Springfield, Ill., a few years earlier for an Illinois State Rifle Association rally, to support the push for looser gun laws in Chicago. It was the beginning of a bond with gun rights activists that led to Mc-Donald v. City of Chicago, a dispute that will be argued before the Supreme Court on Tuesday and could reshape firearms regulations nationwide.
The case marks the second round of high-stakes litigation over the breadth of the Second Amendment — and will likely have wider impact nationwide than the first. In June 2008, the justices struck down a Washington, D.C., handgun ban and declared for the first time that the Second Amendment covers an individual right to keep and bear arms.
The new question is whether the 2008 decision also applies to cities and states, or only to laws in the federal government and its enclaves, such as Washington . It sets up another major constitutional question with ramifications for scores of mostly urban gun regulations.
Chicago defends the 1982 law that stops Mc- Donald and other residents from keeping handguns in their homes, arguing that firearms violence is so serious that the court should not extend the 2008 landmark ruling to states.
Benna Ruth Solomon, the city attorney taking the lead on the new case, says in her brief that states and cities should be able to decide for their own jurisdictions how to reduce crime and also prevent accidental injuries caused by firearms.
The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, the International Association of Chiefs of Police and two other police groups have joined in a “friend of the court” brief cautioning the justices about how their decision could affect gun regulations nationwide.
“Courts already have been grappling with over 190 Second Amendment challenges brought against firearms laws and prosecutions in the year and a half since” the justices’ ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller, the groups say in their brief.
They say lawsuits have targeted, among other regulations, those barring loaded guns on public streets and the possession of guns on government property.
The court said the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to keep guns in the home for self-defense but did not preclude other long-standing laws, such as those that ban felons from having firearms.
The overriding question in the Chicago case: Does the Second Amendment grant a fundamental right comparable to, say, the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech and the Fourth Amendment’s shield against unreasonable searches and seizures? Or, is the Second Amendment in a class of its own because it involves a right to possess a weapon designed to kill or cause injury?
McDonald’s lawyers, backed by 38 states, argue the Second Amendment should protect people against city and state regulation because the right to bear arms is “fundamental to the American scheme of justice.”
The Chicago School Board, backing the city, counters: “We tolerate few restrictions on the right to free speech because of its salutary effects, and because ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me,’ as the children’s rhyme goes. Guns, on the other hand, will kill you.”
‘I am doing this for me’
The case against Chicago’s handgun law began while the groundbreaking District of Columbia v. Heller was in the works. Virginia lawyer Alan Gura, who took the lead on the 2008 case, was looking for residents to challenge the Chicago law and offer a broader test of the Second Amendment.
“I said the Lord is hearing my prayer,” recalls McDonald of meeting Gura and other gun rights lawyers in early 2008. “They never pressed me. I’m not doing this for them. I am doing this for me.”
McDonald had been trying for years to protect himself and other seniors in the deteriorating neighborhood.
Crime in McDonald’s area has been steadily rising, although it is mainly property crime rather than violent assaults, according to Chicago police district statistics. Burglaries and thefts are the most common types of crimes in the district. There were 881 burglaries reported in 2006, 1,109 in 2007 and 1,215 in 2008, the most recent annual report available. There were 17 murders in 2008, a number that has held steady since 2006.
McDonald says he often challenged young drug dealers as they hung around idling cars and warned that he would alert the police: “They’d just call me, ‘You old gray-headed so-and-so’ and say they’d get me.”
McDonald took the threats seriously.
When he first got involved with the Illinois State Rifle Association, he was a rare voice from his South Side neighborhood.
“I was probably the only black at that first meeting” in Springfield, McDonald says. “I met a lot of people. Everybody was friendly.” The Army veteran adds that “it was like a bunch of old GIs getting together. . . . I liked their message.”
The other three Chicagoans in the lawsuit are Adam Orlov and Colleen and David Lawson. The Second Amendment Foundation and Illinois State Rifle Association are also challengers to the Chicago law. (A separate challenge to a handgun ban in the Village of Oak Park, a Chicago suburb, is also part of the Supreme Court case.)
Colleen Lawson, 51, says that when she was young, before the city passed the 1982 ban, many people kept handguns in the home to protect themselves.
“My grandmother carried a handgun in her apron pocket when I was growing up,” she says.
After an attempted burglary in 2006 at the home she and her husband, David, own on the city’s North Side, Lawson says she wanted to keep a handgun in the house. She says that would be easier to handle and give her more confidence than an “unwieldy” shotgun, which is legal in Chicago if properly registered.
On June 26, 2008, the day the Supreme Court invalidated the Washington ban, McDonald, the Lawsons and Orlov were poised to file their lawsuit against Chicago.
They claimed the new ruling on the Second Amendment meant they should be able to register handguns in the city.
Lower U.S. courts rejected the challenge and sided with Chicago.
The remainder of the story is on the next post ...
High court to define reach of gun-control laws
Does right to bear arms trump cities and states?
By Joan Biskupic USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — In 2008, when national gun rights advocates were looking for residents to challenge Chicago’s ban on handguns, Otis Mc-Donald was in effect looking for them. McDonald , 76, says he had seen his neighborhood on the far South Side of Chicago turn from bad to worse over the years with “gangbangers and drug dealers.”
“My wife and I are here alone all the time now,” says McDonald, a retired maintenance engineer, who with his wife, Laura, reared three children. “I’ve got burglar alarms hooked into the police department. I have a shotgun, but a handgun (would be) more handy for me to handle.”
McDonald had driven down to Springfield, Ill., a few years earlier for an Illinois State Rifle Association rally, to support the push for looser gun laws in Chicago. It was the beginning of a bond with gun rights activists that led to Mc-Donald v. City of Chicago, a dispute that will be argued before the Supreme Court on Tuesday and could reshape firearms regulations nationwide.
The case marks the second round of high-stakes litigation over the breadth of the Second Amendment — and will likely have wider impact nationwide than the first. In June 2008, the justices struck down a Washington, D.C., handgun ban and declared for the first time that the Second Amendment covers an individual right to keep and bear arms.
The new question is whether the 2008 decision also applies to cities and states, or only to laws in the federal government and its enclaves, such as Washington . It sets up another major constitutional question with ramifications for scores of mostly urban gun regulations.
Chicago defends the 1982 law that stops Mc- Donald and other residents from keeping handguns in their homes, arguing that firearms violence is so serious that the court should not extend the 2008 landmark ruling to states.
Benna Ruth Solomon, the city attorney taking the lead on the new case, says in her brief that states and cities should be able to decide for their own jurisdictions how to reduce crime and also prevent accidental injuries caused by firearms.
The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, the International Association of Chiefs of Police and two other police groups have joined in a “friend of the court” brief cautioning the justices about how their decision could affect gun regulations nationwide.
“Courts already have been grappling with over 190 Second Amendment challenges brought against firearms laws and prosecutions in the year and a half since” the justices’ ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller, the groups say in their brief.
They say lawsuits have targeted, among other regulations, those barring loaded guns on public streets and the possession of guns on government property.
The court said the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to keep guns in the home for self-defense but did not preclude other long-standing laws, such as those that ban felons from having firearms.
The overriding question in the Chicago case: Does the Second Amendment grant a fundamental right comparable to, say, the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech and the Fourth Amendment’s shield against unreasonable searches and seizures? Or, is the Second Amendment in a class of its own because it involves a right to possess a weapon designed to kill or cause injury?
McDonald’s lawyers, backed by 38 states, argue the Second Amendment should protect people against city and state regulation because the right to bear arms is “fundamental to the American scheme of justice.”
The Chicago School Board, backing the city, counters: “We tolerate few restrictions on the right to free speech because of its salutary effects, and because ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me,’ as the children’s rhyme goes. Guns, on the other hand, will kill you.”
‘I am doing this for me’
The case against Chicago’s handgun law began while the groundbreaking District of Columbia v. Heller was in the works. Virginia lawyer Alan Gura, who took the lead on the 2008 case, was looking for residents to challenge the Chicago law and offer a broader test of the Second Amendment.
“I said the Lord is hearing my prayer,” recalls McDonald of meeting Gura and other gun rights lawyers in early 2008. “They never pressed me. I’m not doing this for them. I am doing this for me.”
McDonald had been trying for years to protect himself and other seniors in the deteriorating neighborhood.
Crime in McDonald’s area has been steadily rising, although it is mainly property crime rather than violent assaults, according to Chicago police district statistics. Burglaries and thefts are the most common types of crimes in the district. There were 881 burglaries reported in 2006, 1,109 in 2007 and 1,215 in 2008, the most recent annual report available. There were 17 murders in 2008, a number that has held steady since 2006.
McDonald says he often challenged young drug dealers as they hung around idling cars and warned that he would alert the police: “They’d just call me, ‘You old gray-headed so-and-so’ and say they’d get me.”
McDonald took the threats seriously.
When he first got involved with the Illinois State Rifle Association, he was a rare voice from his South Side neighborhood.
“I was probably the only black at that first meeting” in Springfield, McDonald says. “I met a lot of people. Everybody was friendly.” The Army veteran adds that “it was like a bunch of old GIs getting together. . . . I liked their message.”
The other three Chicagoans in the lawsuit are Adam Orlov and Colleen and David Lawson. The Second Amendment Foundation and Illinois State Rifle Association are also challengers to the Chicago law. (A separate challenge to a handgun ban in the Village of Oak Park, a Chicago suburb, is also part of the Supreme Court case.)
Colleen Lawson, 51, says that when she was young, before the city passed the 1982 ban, many people kept handguns in the home to protect themselves.
“My grandmother carried a handgun in her apron pocket when I was growing up,” she says.
After an attempted burglary in 2006 at the home she and her husband, David, own on the city’s North Side, Lawson says she wanted to keep a handgun in the house. She says that would be easier to handle and give her more confidence than an “unwieldy” shotgun, which is legal in Chicago if properly registered.
On June 26, 2008, the day the Supreme Court invalidated the Washington ban, McDonald, the Lawsons and Orlov were poised to file their lawsuit against Chicago.
They claimed the new ruling on the Second Amendment meant they should be able to register handguns in the city.
Lower U.S. courts rejected the challenge and sided with Chicago.
The remainder of the story is on the next post ...
