Well, McDonald v. Chicago \u2013 think of it as \u201cson of Heller v. Washington DC\u201d in terms of its importance to Second Amendment rights \u2013 has been argued. I wish they had broadcast the argument in live feed: so much is lost when you only read the cold black and white print of the transcript, and can\u2019t catch all of the inflection in the voices, particularly the voices of the questioning Justices.
\nAnd why, with cases impacting literally life-or-death issues, are the advocates allowed only thirty minutes per side to argue their positions?
\nInitial impressions? For one thing, The Nine were \u201cequal opportunity ruthless\u201d in their questioning of both gun owners\u2019 rights advocate Alan Gura, who successfully argued Heller a couple of years ago, and James Feldman, the lawyer Chicago brought in from Washington to argue their side. They kept cutting off Gura with questions before he could finish making his points, but my favorite part was when Feldman tried to say that since Chicago allows you to own, say, a shotgun but not a handgun, \u201c\u2026it imposes a reasonable regulation standard that is not violated by banning a particular weapon or a particular class of weapons, as long as you are allowing some kind of firearm, and that is not the right that this Court recognized in Heller.\u201d
\nJustice Scalia responded, \u201cIs that what you are asserting here, that the States have to allow firearms?\u201d Feldman replied, \u201cNo.\u201d Scalia: \u201cIs that \u2013\u201c Feldman: \u201cI \u2013 I didn\u2019t think I was.\u201d Scalia: \u201cI didn\u2019t think so, either, so why did your last argument make any sense?\u201d
\nI dunno what fine legal minds would call that colloquy, but to this non-lawyer it sounds remarkably close to what some folks call a \u201cbitch-slap.\u201d
\nOn another related topic, this lawsuit was brought by Second Amendment Foundation, a group I\u2019ve been proud to serve for many years on its Board of Trustees. I\u2019m also a longtime Life Member of the NRA, which pushed its nose in the door and got ten minutes of the precious half-hour allotted for our side\u2019s argument. I wasn\u2019t too thrilled about that at first, but it turns out to have been for the good: NRA\u2019s voice, Paul Clement, seemed to be better received than either of the other advocates by the Supremes, and made some powerful points for our side on the Due Process argument, to which the highest court in the land seemed much more receptive than to the Privilege and Immunities Clause, which Gura argued along with the Due Process point. I stand corrected. I\u2019m glad Clement was there.
\nGeneral consensus of the pundits is that we\u2019ll win, and the Supreme Court of the United States will rule that the lesser governmental entities are bound by the previous SCOTUS decision that the Second Amendment is an individual right\u2026but that \u201creasonable regulations\u201d of that right will still be authorized. Expect the Chicago handgun ownership ban to be struck down, in other words, but don\u2019t expect the Supreme Court to mandate \u201cshall issue\u201d carry permits in Illinois, either.
\nMost of the fine legal minds are looking at something between a 5-4 win such as we got in Heller, perhaps a 6-3; some see Justice Kennedy as a swing vote, and read his words in the transcript as proof that he sees it the way we do. I\u2019ve seen predictions as high as 8-1, because as noted in my last blog entry here, there are corollary issues that profoundly impact other rights that even the most liberal of our Supreme Court Justices don\u2019t want to see imperiled.
\nBottom line: don\u2019t count the chickens until they hatch. The opinion is expected in June or July. Even then, it will still be a fight \u2013 one we and our children and our grandchildren can expect to be embroiled in for so long as we hope to keep our rights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well, McDonald v. Chicago \u2013 think of it as \u201cson of Heller v. Washington DC\u201d in terms of its importance to Second Amendment rights \u2013 has been argued. I wish they had broadcast the argument in live feed: so much is lost when you only read the cold black and white print of the transcript, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-744","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-firearm-owners-civil-rights"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}