Pat Dollard

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IBD Editorials:

Gun Control: The Supreme Court agrees to decide if the Second Amendment applies to all of us, or just Washington, D.C. Why would the Founders put in the Bill of Rights something applying only to a federal enclave?

In a 5-4 decision last year written by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court overturned a draconian District of Columbia gun ban enacted 32 years ago that barred private ownership of handguns at all. Scalia wrote that an individual’s right to bear arms is supported by “the historical narrative” both before and after the Second Amendment was adopted.

The court ruled that the Second Amendment indeed protected an individual’s right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and to use that firearm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. But it left unclear whether the ruling applied outside the nation’s capital.

The joy of Second Amendment defenders was short-lived. A three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected subsequent suits brought by the National Rifle Association against the city of Chicago and suburb Oak Park that similarly believe the Constitution prevents citizens from defending themselves.

That decision was written by Judge Frank Easterbrook, and his reasoning was fascinating. According to Easterbrook, the Revolution was fought and independence won so that the Founding Fathers could write a U.S. Constitution with a Bill of Rights that applied only to the District of Columbia.

Heller v. Washington, D.C., “dealt with a law enacted under the authority of the national government,” Easterbrook said, “while Chicago and Oak Park are subordinate bodies of a state.” We’re all for federalism, but the U.S. Constitution is the U.S. Constitution. Surely he cannot be serious.

But he is, and freshman Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor agrees with him. While she was on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, Sotomayor and the 2nd Circuit affirmed a lower court’s decision in a case that the Second Amendment applies only to federal laws and not to states or municipalities.

One of the plaintiffs in the Chicago case is Otis McDonald, a Chicago resident since 1952 and a retired maintenance engineer who helped integrate his union. He is also a community activist who has been threatened for his efforts to rid his neighborhood of drug dealers and other criminals. McDonald owns a handgun, but he cannot keep it inside the city because of the handgun ban.