Civil and Human Rights

Second Amendment Rights and States

Details

Tuesday, March 2, 2010
5:15 pm
Cato Institute

Participants talked about gun control laws and a Supreme Court case scheduled to be argued the following day.

In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court, in District of Columbia v. Heller, struck down Washington, D.C.’s ban on handguns and found that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. On March 2, 2010, in McDonald v. City of Chicago, the Court will hear oral arguments on whether that right applies to states and localities. The Court is expected to hold that it does: a key purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified at the height of Reconstruction in 1868, was to allow newly freed slaves and white Unionists to defend themselves against Southern reprisals by protecting their right to keep and bear arms. But if the Court reaches that result via the Due Process Clause or the Privileges or Immunities Clause, which was specifically enacted to protect various individual rights, including particularly the right to armed self-defense, would help determine the future of gun rights in America and also constitutional law generally, because it could lead to the re-invigoration of a variety of important liberties that courts have long neglected.

More from Civil and Human Rights

Civil and Human Rights
February 27, 2025

What You Should Know About the Right to Protection in the Trump Era

Washington Monthly
The 14th Amendment was meant to enforce the laws equally, not put vulnerable populations in...
By: David H. Gans
Civil and Human Rights
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington

Shilling v. Trump

In Shilling v. Trump, the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington is considering whether Trump’s Executive Order categorically barring transgender persons from serving in the military is unconstitutional.
Civil and Human Rights
February 19, 2025

History of the North Dakota Constitution Amicus Brief in Access Independent Health Services Inc., d/b/a Red River Women’s Clinic v. Wrigley

Center for Reproductive Rights
Amicus is the Constitutional Accountability Center, a think tank and public interest law firm dedicated...
Civil and Human Rights
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

Talbott v. Trump

In Talbott v. Trump, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia is considering whether Trump’s Executive Order categorically barring transgender persons from serving in the military is unconstitutional. 
Civil and Human Rights
March 11, 2025

Equality and Protection: The Forgotten Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment

102 Denv. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2025)
Civil and Human Rights
North Dakota Supreme Court

Access Independent Health Services Inc. v. Wrigley

In Access Independent Health Services Inc. v. Wrigley, the North Dakota Supreme Court is considering whether North Dakota’s abortion ban violates the state constitution.