Lessons of the Fourteenth Amendment - Heller, McDonald and Halbrook
Part 2

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Halbrook closes his book by stating that although “firearms ownership, even by peaceable citizens, is controversial today, it was far more controversial during Reconstruction.  Trusting ex-slaves to own firearms was, by any definition, the cutting edge or true belief in civil rights.  It remains to be seen whether contemporary society will accommodate the same rights of the freedmen sought to be guaranteed by the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment.” (page 196) Although written in 1998, this closing remark remains prophetic given the ongoing actions of primarily white governments to keep a primarily black citizenry disarmed in Washington D.C., Chicago and many other American cities.

Reflecting on current views on  the Second Amendment, Halbrook writes “ Judicial reluctance to consider seriously whether the Fourteenth Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms from state infringement perhaps reflects a tendency to view the Second Amendment, with its apparent guarantee of gun ownership, as embarrassing and politically incorrect. (8) Under the twentieth-century ‘State’s rights’ view, ‘the people’ have no right to bear arms, but the states have a collective right to have the National Guard. (9) However, the weight of serious scholarship supports the historical intent of the Second Amendment to protect individual rights and to deter governmental tyranny. (10) From the Federalist Papers (11) to explanations when the Bill of Rights was introduced, (12) is it clear that the purpose of the Second Amendment was to protect individual rights.” (page viii)

So viewing recent events through our historical context of the Second Amendment, there are some striking problems with the public discussion of the District of Columbia V. Heller and the McDonald V. Chicago cases.   First is the misrepresentation that the Supreme Court expanded gun rights – they did not.  The Court merely confirmed the innate rights of liberty including the right of self defense as documented in the Constitution.

Secondly, in response to loosing in Supreme Court, Chicago did not rise to support their citizen’s Second Amendment rights.  Rather, echoing post Civil War Southern states, Chicago passed an Ordinance to meet the minimum requirements of the Court’s decision in support of private gun ownership while remaining intentionally and excessively restrictive and limiting.  In their defense of their gun bans, the Chicago Ordinance includes the following citations: