Mcdonald's Second Amendment

Otis McDonald, a Chicago resident, sought to acquire a handgun for personal defense. However, the latter was not possible due to laws imposed by the city of Chicago requiring registration for every handgun, also the city refused to grant any new permits for almost twenty-nine years. The Chicago petitioner, McDonald, argues that the handgun ban has left him vulnerable to criminals. The Chicago Police Department statistics, reveal that “the City's handgun murder rate has actually increased since the ban was enacted and that Chicago residents now face one of the highest murder rates in the country and rates of other violent crimes that exceed the average in comparable cities.” Comprehending the history, major issues , majority opinions dissents

Stevens argues that the Second Amendment protects the individual right to bear arms only in the context of military service and (2) does not limit government's authority to regulate civilian use or possession of firearms. (2010.OLR Research Report) In his dissent, Breyer mentioned that “even if the 2nd Amendment, in addition to militia-related purposes, protects an individual's right of self-defense, that assumption should be the beginning of the constitutional inquiry, not the end. Breyer contended that there are no purely logical or conceptual ways to determine the constitutionality of gun control laws, such as the District's law.”(2010.OLR Research Report) He also argued that “taking into account the extensive evidence of gun crime and gun violence in urban areas, the District;s gun law would be constitutionally permissible.”(2010.OLR Research

The gun lobby might threated with suing in order to prevent the state governments from pursuing future bans on firearms and handguns due to high criminality. “Policymakers should rest assured, however, that nothing in the McDonald decision prevents them from adopting many types of reasonable laws to reduce gun violence.”(2010.Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence) Also in March 2010, “a federal district court rejected a Second Amendment challenge to many of those laws, including a ban on assault weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines, a one-handgun-a-month law, and a law requiring the reporting of lost or stolen firearms, demonstrating that many strong gun laws remain consistent with the Second Amendment.”(2010. Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence) . The threat of litigation upholding the Heller Right is present, but laws dealing with gun control in every other state are so much different than those of Chicago, giving ample room to bear and keep