SUPREME COURT DETERMINES THAT SECOND AMENDMENTS APPLIES TO THE STATES
Court Explicitly States that McDonald Ruling "Does Not Imperil Every Law Regulating Firearms"

Washington, D.C.—Today, the U.S. Supreme Court found—for the first time—that the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in a case that considered Chicago’s longstanding law prohibiting private ownership of handguns. The Court remanded the case to the lower court for further consideration under this newly-enunciated interpretation of the Second Amendment.

The McDonald v. Chicago ruling follows the Court’s 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller decision, which struck down the District’s strict handgun law and declared that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own a handgun for self-defense in the home. That holding, however, was applicable only to Washington, D.C. and other federal enclaves.

“By extending Heller to restrict state and local gun laws in McDonald, the Court has limited the ability of Americans to determine what public safety laws best suit their communities,” said Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) Executive Director Josh Horwitz. “We are now likely to see a new wave of frivolous lawsuits attacking gun laws across the country.”

However, Justice Samuel Alito—who wrote the majority opinion—also made it clear that common-sense restrictions on firearms will survive. In the McDonald decision, he writes, “We made it clear in Heller that our holding did not cast doubt on such longstanding regulatory measures as ‘prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill,’ ‘laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.’ … We repeat those assurances here. Despite [the city of Chicago’s] doomsday proclamations, incorporation does not imperil every law regulating firearms.”

“While the nuances of the McDonald ruling will be played out in lower courts over the next several years, we believe that the interpretation of the Second Amendment iterated by the Supreme Court today will still allow states and localities to deploy well-crafted firearms restrictions to protect public safety” said Horwitz.