So, what's the chance that things could get worse for gun owners after this?
Couldn't the Supreme Court decide that states and cities have a right to create more restrictive gun laws than the federal government?
We've all been acting like this will be a slam dunk, but I'm not sure it is. And if they don't rule in the favor of McDonald, even more states and cities could jump on board with gun banning.

With the Court, NOTHING is EVER a "slam-dunk" all we can do now is hope.

Oral arguments will begin about 20 minutes from now.

I know of three bloggers who are attending, and should post some early comments. They are probably going to be our first indicators of how the day went.

A full written transcript of the proceedings will be available later today, and I'll be scanning those for anything of interest.

Hang on--it's going to be an interesting day. We're seeing history being made.

Analysis: 2d Amendment extension likely
Lyle Denniston | Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 11:26 am

Analysis

The Supreme Court on Tuesday seemed poised to require state and local governments to obey the Second Amendment guarantee of a personal right to a gun, but with perhaps considerable authority to regulate that right. The dominant sentiment on the Court was to extend the Amendment beyond the federal level, based on the 14th Amendment�s guarantee of �due process,� since doing so through another part of the 14th Amendment would raise too many questions about what other rights might emerge.

When the Justices cast their first vote after starting later this week to discuss where to go from here, it appeared that the focus of debate will be how extensive a �right to keep and bear arms� should be spelled out: would it be only some �core right� to have a gun for personal safety, or would it include every variation of that right that could emerge in the future as courts decide specific cases? The liberal wing of the Court appeared to be making a determined effort to hold the expanded Amendment in check, but even the conservatives open to applying the Second Amendment to states, counties and cities seemed ready to concede some limitations.

The Court would have to develop some really bizarre oppositional theories to now rule against stare decisis precedent as to incorporation.

The Court would have to develop some really bizarre oppositional theories to now rule against stare decisis precedent as to incorporation.

Analysis

The Supreme Court on Tuesday seemed poised to require state and local governments to obey the Second Amendment guarantee of a personal right to a gun, but with perhaps considerable authority to regulate that right. The dominant sentiment on the Court was to extend the Amendment beyond the federal level, based on the 14th Amendment�s guarantee of �due process,� since doing so through another part of the 14th Amendment would raise too many questions about what other rights might emerge.

When the Justices cast their first vote after starting later this week to discuss where to go from here, it appeared that the focus of debate will be how extensive a �right to keep and bear arms� should be spelled out: would it be only some �core right� to have a gun for personal safety, or would it include every variation of that right that could emerge in the future as courts decide specific cases? The liberal wing of the Court appeared to be making a determined effort to hold the expanded Amendment in check, but even the conservatives open to applying the Second Amendment to states, counties and cities seemed ready to concede some limitations.

[O]ne thing appears clear: the justices are not yet ready to open what seems to them to be a can of worms by invoking the �privileges or immunities� clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as the way to apply the right to bear arms to states and localities. The more traditional route of the �due process� clause seems almost certain to be Court�s chosen path.
Alan Gura, who was arguing for the �privileges or immunities� route, ran into skepticism almost from the moment he began, when Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. said Gura had a �heavy burden� because his approach entailed striking down the Slaughterhouse cases of 1873.

Justice Antonin Scalia piled on by asking Gura why he�d take this more difficult path �unless you�re bucking for some place on a law school faculty.� The privileges or immunities clause, Scalia added sarcastically, has become the �darling of the professoriate.� Justice Stephen Breyer also seemed to opt for caution, asking Gura questions about the implications of using a new part of the Constitution to apply the Second Amendment to states.

The justices seemed almost to sigh in relief when former solicitor general Paul Clement, representing the National Rifle Association on the same side as Gura, rose to reassure the justices that using the due process clause was a �remarkably straightforward� way to apply the Second Amendment that would not involve upsetting precedent.

An attempt by an attorney for the cities of Chicago and Oak Park, Ill., defending local bans on handguns in those communities, to prevent any application of the constitutional gun right to states, counties and cities looked forlorn and even doomed. The nub of that argument by James A. Feldman of Washington was that, unlike other constitutional rights that the Court has extended to the state and local level, the right to a gun recognized by the Court two years ago in District of Columbia v. Heller pitted the threat that guns pose to human lives against a constitutional right, so the balance should be struck differently. So far as the hearing Tuesday showed, Justice Stephen G. Breyer was the only member of the Court attracted to that approach.

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I'm glad the NRA picked up on that potential concern. It's what your dues paid for folks!!

The justices seemed almost to sigh in relief when former solicitor general Paul Clement, representing the National Rifle Association on the same side as Gura, rose to reassure the justices that using the due process clause was a �remarkably straightforward� way to apply the Second Amendment that would not involve upsetting precedent.
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I'm glad the NRA picked up on that potential concern. It's what your dues paid for folks!!

Just got back from oral argument. Short form: I think we have five votes. MIGHT do better than five, but five seem secure. Roberts, Scalia and Kennedy seemed VERY strongly against Chicago's position, Alito seemed against it, Thomas asked no questions but is thorough pro-2a and 14thA, so it looks like the Heller majority holds. Conversely, Breyer attacked Heller and kept arguing against incorporation. Majority did not like privileges or immunities, but due process seemed solid.

Humor: the room was packed, hundreds of people, every seat taken. After McDonald, the Court remained in place to hear the next case. As I left I heard the chief justice say "Well, counsel, WE're still here." I looked back and saw what he meant -- there were perhaps 20 people staying for the next case, as hundreds left.

If we win, I bet those bizarre theories will be authored in the Dissent by Stevens and Ginsburg.

"The Court would have to develop some really bizarre oppositional theories ............"

Now you really got me on 'pins and needles!

I figured that by now Ginsburg would be in the state of doing a capt Pike routine from Star trek, you know, green light for yes, red light for no?

Full transcript of today's arguments is here.

That sounds an awful lot to me like the argument we heard in Heller on the losing side.

Only a handful here know what you're talking about.

Do members of the majority ruling get a little bent when an attorney tries to re-argue a case?




Just wondering as a non-attorney.

OK smart folks, give me a 5th grade explanantion of P&I vs. Due Process.

Has anyone asked Obama to comment on this case?

Has anyone asked Obama to comment on this case?

Have music playing in the background that matches up exactly to your avatar. Pretty cool...

UPDATE: Michael Lotus offers praise for Alan Gura: �The P&I argument in McDonald was a stroke of genius. It made incorporating 2nd Amendment rights via Due Process � something that just a few years ago would have seemed fanciful � look like the sensible, cautious, middle-of-the-road approach.�

The justices seemed almost to sigh in relief when former solicitor general Paul Clement, representing the National Rifle Association on the same side as Gura, rose to reassure the justices that using the due process clause was a �remarkably straightforward� way to apply the Second Amendment that would not involve upsetting precedent.
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I'm glad the NRA picked up on that potential concern. It's what your dues paid for folks!!

That sounds an awful lot to me like the argument we heard in Heller on the losing side.

Interesting comment from Volokh Conspiracy:



Privileges and Immunities vs Due Process:

The 14th Amendment provides two possible paths for making the states obey the Bill of Rights. One is via the Privileges and Immunities Clause, and the other is by the Due Process Clause. Back in the 1800's, the Supreme Court pretty much gutted the Privileges and Immunities Clause. Many liberals were very hopeful that the Chicago case would cause the Supreme Court to overturn the old cases and perhaps spawn a whole new assortment of rights that the states had to respect. If they had done that, it would have really stirred things up. The Supreme Court is VERY unwilling to make bold moves. So they will grant incorporation (make the states obey 2A) via the traditional route, the Due Process Clause.

The final decision won't be out for several weeks, but it is apparent that it will overturn Chicago's gun law and make 2A binding upon the states.

By RANDY E. BARNETT

Imagine you are a visitor from another planet reading the U.S. Constitution. You come to the 14th Amendment, where it says: "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." Might you not think this must be a pretty important provision?

Now suppose you are told that, for over 135 years, the Supreme Court has, with one exception, entirely ignored that language. Might you question whether Supreme Court justices were bound by the written Constitution? Had you been seated in the Supreme Court yesterday to hear oral arguments in McDonald v. Chicago, your suspicions might well have been confirmed.

McDonald is a constitutional challenge to a ban on handguns in the City of Chicago that resembles the gun ban in the District of Columbia that the Supreme Court struck down two years ago. In D.C. v. Heller, the Court held that banning all handguns violated an individual right to right to keep and bear arms protected by the Second Amendment. Because the Second Amendment only applies directly to the federal government, however, Heller was just the first shoe to drop. The next question was whether the individual right to arms also applies to the states.

Since the 1890s, the Supreme Court has been "selectively incorporating" the Bill of Rights piecemeal into the 14th Amendment via that amendment's Due Process Clause. So that would be the most obvious way to apply the right to keep and bear arms to the states. But that poses a challenge.

The Due Process Clause reads: "nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Using this language to protect substantive rights has long been controversial.

First of all, "due process" sounds procedural not substantive. The Court has also used "substantive due process" to protect unenumerated rights it deems to be fundamental, such as the right to privacy. Just where in the text of the Due Process Clause is this right? For this reason, "due process" has long been criticized by conservatives as a route to unfettered judicial discretion.

But what about the clause protecting the "privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States"? The language was made part of the 14th Amendment (adopted in 1868) to deal with the problem of Southern states egregiously violating the rights of freed black slaves and white unionists�including disarming returning soldiers and any other blacks who sought to protect themselves from the terrorist violence being unleashed against them. Actually, the right to keep and bear arms was among the most frequently mentioned privilege of citizens when the amendment was being considered in Congress.

The evidence is clear that the privileges or immunities of citizens included those rights in the Bill of Rights. As Michigan's Sen. Jacob Howard explained to the Senate, these privileges or immunities included, among others, "the personal rights guarantied and secured by the first eight amendments of the Constitution; such as . . . the right to keep and to bear arms."

In contrast, no one thought the language of the Due Process Clause included a right to arms. On this point there is consensus among constitutional scholars whether left, right or libertarian. Nevertheless, in the 1873 Slaughter-House Cases, the Reconstruction-era Supreme Court essentially eliminated the Privileges or Immunities Clause from the Constitution by holding it only protected purely national rights, like the right to be protected while on the high seas. Since then, other than a case involving a right to interstate travel, the Court has never used the Privileges or Immunities Clause.
Judging by yesterday's oral argument, the Supreme Court is afraid to revisit that 1873 decision for fear of opening a can of worms. Chief Justice John Roberts began the questioning by invoking the heavy burden on anyone seeking to reverse Slaughter-House. Justice Antonin Scalia referred to the Privileges or Immunities Clause as the "darling of the professoriate," a reference not intended as a compliment.

Noticeably absent was any question�not one�by any justice challenging the historical evidence that the right to keep and bear arms was among those included in the Privileges or Immunities Clause. For that matter, no justice seemed at all interested in the original meaning of any aspect of the 14th Amendment. (As is his practice, Justice Clarence Thomas, the one justice who has expressed sympathy for reviving the Privileges or Immunities Clause, asked no questions.)

So what did the justices discuss? In a revealing early question, Justice Scalia asked whether it isn't "easier" just to use the Due Process Clause.

What followed was nearly an hour-long discussion between the Court and lawyers about whether or not a right to arms was "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty" and whether something else should be the test of whether a right is "fundamental." Should rights spelled out in the Constitution's text be treated differently from unenumerated ones? How much of the right to keep and bear arms is applicable to the states? The entire colloquy was unmoored from the text and history of the 14th Amendment.

In other words, the justices became lost amid their own formulations, demonstrating by their wandering discussion that using substantive due process as a way of deciding what rights in the Bill of Rights get protection against the states ("incorporated") is really, really hard. Not only do they have to decide, all on their own, what is in or out, they also have to adopt the criteria by which to make this decision.

In response, Justice Scalia insisted that the right to keep and bear arms is right there in the text, which of course is true. But so too is the Privileges or Immunities Clause, which, unlike the Court's due process jurisprudence, has a historical meaning that helps define and limit the rights it was meant to protect.
For example, apart from personal liberties in the Bill of Rights, we know that the Civil War-era congressional Republicans were trying to constitutionally protect the rights enumerated in their Civil Rights Bill of 1866. This legislation listed the rights "to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property." Yet these are now considered "economic" liberties, which the Court has been loath to protect since the New Deal. This may also explain why yesterday it wanted to ignore text and history.

At the McDonald argument, it seemed obvious that five or more justices will vote to apply the Second Amendment to the states. This would be a great victory for gun rights�one that until a few years ago would have been unimaginable. But it was also obvious that most were deeply afraid of following a text whose original meaning might lead them where they do not want to go. When it came to following the written Constitution, a visitor from another planet would not, I suspect, have been very impressed.

Mr. Barnett is a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown and the author of "Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty" (Princeton 2005).