McDonald v. Chicago

Abstract

McDonald vs. city of Chicago is a landmark case in the history of America which put forth the verdict in regards to whether second amendment applies to the state and local governments in the course of the fourteenth amendement's clauses of due process and the privileges and immunities. This paper aims to cascade light on this case by relating it with another landmark case in the history of United States of America that is the Heller vs. Columbia case. First the paper argues and explains how the second amendment applies to the state and local governments in the course of the fourteenth amendement's clauses of due process and the privileges and immunities. Subsequently the paper discusses and analyzes the correlation between the decision of Supreme Court case District of Columbia Vs Heller, and McDonald Vs Chicago decision.

McDonald v. Chicago

How the second amendment applies to the state and municipalities in the course of fourteenth amendment's clauses of the due process and the privileges and immunities?

The second amendment put forths that a well regulated armed force, being essential for the safety and protection of a liberal state, the individuals' right to hold and possess arms, should not be breached. Second amendment permits and allows the people to bear and possess arms counting the handguns for the rationale of safety and self protection. It is a basic right of the people to possess arms with the intention of self protection and safeguard, in fact it is the intrinsic human right. Accordingly, states should be forbidden from breaching or banning this inherent right of individuals. Restricting the authority of local and state governments to limit the right to keep arms is required to let people secure themselves against aggressive criminal activity, especially in towns and cities. Handguns, specifically, are principally helpful to normal peoples in protecting themselves or their properties from the offenders, making gun ownership an imperative part of the people's right of self protection (LII, 2010).

As the States do not possess the power to test with various essential privileges, for instance independence of speech, similarly states should also not be permitted to test in regards to the right of keeping arms. The course of the 14th amendment changed the equilibrium amid government and state authority and that the issues of nationalism should not over-shadow the security of individual privileges that the specific amendment was intended to guarantee. Second amendment is amongst the immunities or privileges of United States citizenship. Such privileges can not be cut down by states (LII, 2010).

The second amendment, just as other bill of rights, initially limited the authority of just the federal government. However, later it was regulated that the majority of the protections of the bill of rights be valid to the states underneath the fourteenth amendment's clause of due process. It is however put forward that the court should not depend on the clause of due process instead on the fourteenth's amendement's clause of privileges and immunities, which articulates that any law cannot be ...