By Glen Wunderlich Outdoor Columnist Member Professional Outdoor Media Association
Time has come for state and federal lawmakers to become reacquainted with the clear meaning of the Second Amendment. With the recent announcement that the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case of McDonald v. City of Chicago, the right of all law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms shall be decided. At issue is whether state and local governments can limit liberty.
A 27-year-old Chicago law banning handguns, requiring the annual taxation of firearms, and otherwise interfering with the right of law-abiding individuals to keep guns at home for self-defense is on the line. The case was brought on behalf of four Chicago residents, the Second Amendment Foundation, and the Illinois State Rifle Association.
In last year’s Heller challenge, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms. However, that case addressed only the actions of the District of Columbia government, a federal entity; the Supreme Court did not decide whether the right bound states and local governments. Over the years, almost the entire Bill of Rights has been held to apply to state and local governments by operation of the Fourteenth Amendment, with the relevant portion reading as follows: “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…”
It really doesn’t seem that complicated, but here we go again. Anyone who has studied history understands that the Bill of Rights protects individuals from overreaching government actions. But, just as sure as you are reading this, the spin will commence, as it did during the Heller case. It will be another example of politics at its worst. And, nothing could be more dreadful, when one considers what is at stake: The very freedom, which has made this country the greatest on earth.
Otis McDonald, a Chicago resident since 1952 and a plaintiff in the case said, “I am grateful the Supreme Court has agreed to hear this case. I now pray that the Court secures me and all other law-abiding citizens the right to defend ourselves and our families.”
It’s an outrage that any governmental entity would think to deny its citizens the right to self defense in their own homes with the means equal to those that would do harm but, once again, for the past 27 years, that’s exactly the case in Chicago.
There remains an eternal truth handed down to us by one Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.), who put it this way: “There exists a law, not written down anywhere, but inborn in our hearts; a law which comes to us not by training or custom or reading but by derivation and absorption and adoption from nature itself; a law which has come to us not from theory but from practice, not by instruction but by natural intuition. I refer to the law, which lays it down that, if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right. When weapons reduce them to silence, the laws no longer expect one to await their pronouncements.” For people who decide to wait for these will have to wait for justice, too – and meanwhile they must suffer injustice first.”
