## Facts

- Chicago and the Village of Oak Park maintained ordinances that effectively barred most private handgun possession, including by generally prohibiting new handgun registrations and broadly banning possession or carrying of handguns.
- After the Supreme Court recognized an individual Second Amendment right to possess a handgun in the home for self-defense, several residents challenged the Chicago and Oak Park ordinances under the Second and Fourteenth Amendments.
- Petitioners alleged the handgun bans prevented effective self-defense in their homes and left law-abiding residents vulnerable to crime.
- The district court dismissed the suits, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed, relying on older precedent stating the Second Amendment restricted only the federal government.
- The Supreme Court granted review to decide whether the Second Amendment right recognized in prior precedent applies to state and local governments through the Fourteenth Amendment, and if so, through which clause.

## Issues

1. Whether the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms for self-defense is enforceable against state and local governments through the Fourteenth Amendment.
2. Whether incorporation of that right occurs through the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause or the Privileges or Immunities Clause.
3. Whether earlier cases treating the Second Amendment as nonbinding on the states should control after recognition of an individual right to possess a handgun in the home.

## Decision

- The Court reversed the Seventh Circuit and remanded, holding that the Fourteenth Amendment makes the Second Amendment right recognized in prior precedent applicable to the states and their political subdivisions.
- A majority concluded incorporation occurs through the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
- The Court declined to incorporate the right through the Privileges or Immunities Clause and did not overrule precedent limiting that clause’s scope.
- The Court reaffirmed that the Second Amendment right is not unlimited and that various longstanding firearm regulations remain presumptively lawful.
- Justice Thomas concurred in the judgment, agreeing the right applies to the states but concluding incorporation should proceed through the Privileges or Immunities Clause.
- Four Justices dissented, disputing that the right as defined is sufficiently fundamental to require incorporation and emphasizing state and local authority to address public safety.

## Legal Principles

- A Bill of Rights guarantee is incorporated against the states under the Due Process Clause when it is fundamental to the Nation’s scheme of ordered liberty and deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and tradition.
- The right to possess a handgun in the home for self-defense is a fundamental right protected by the Second Amendment and is enforceable against state and local governments through the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause.
- The Court’s incorporation analysis focuses on domestic history and tradition rather than whether comparable foreign legal systems permit or restrict the asserted right.
- Incorporation does not invalidate all firearm regulation; longstanding limits (including restrictions on possession by certain categories of persons and bans in sensitive places) are generally consistent with the Second Amendment, subject to later case-specific application.
- The decision displaced earlier non-incorporation holdings to the extent they treated the Second Amendment as inapplicable to the states.

## Conclusion

The Supreme Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment right to possess a handgun in the home for self-defense, binding state and local governments, while leaving the detailed validity of particular firearm regulations for further proceedings and future cases.


McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010)