Federal Judiciary

Links to new gun rights lawsuits

By Akin Gump Supreme Court Practice Group

On Friday, the National Rifle Association filed five lawsuits, seeking to apply the Constitution’s Second Amendment to block gun control laws adopted by local governments in California and Illinois.  This blog provided a link to the California complaint as part of a post that can be found here.

The NRA has provided links to the other four lawsuits.  All four were filed in the U.S. District Court Northern District of Illinois (Eastern Division).  Each of the cases makes the argument that the Second Amendment is applicable to the state and local governments through the Fourteenth Amendment — an issue the Supreme Court has not considered since 1894, when it said the Amendment applied only to the federal government. That is an issue the Court specifically declined to consider in its June 26 ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller (07-290), finding an individual right to have a gun for self-defense in one’s home.

The Chicago case, NRA, et al., v. City of Chicago, et al. (docket 08-3697) is here.  It challenges a city code provision that requires registration of firearms, but bars registering handguns.

The Evanston, Ill., case, NRA, et al., v. City of Evanston, et al. (docket 08-3693) is here.  That city bans handgun possession, except for licensed gun collectors, and movie theaters and film production companies (presumably, for use in performances).

The Oak Park, Ill., case, NRA, et al., v. Village of Oak Park, et al. (docket 08-3696) is here.  The Village bans handgun possession and bars carrying other guns, such as a rifle or shotgun, outside the home or business or beyond one’s own land, but there is an excpetion for licensed hunters or fishermen going to or from game areas.  There is a general exc eption for licensed gun collectors.  Like Evanston, Oak Park allows guns to be used in theater performances, using blank ammunition.

The Morton Grove, Ill., case, NRA, et al., v. Village of Morton Grove, et al. (docket 08-3694), is here. That community bans handgun possession, except for licensed gun collectors and licensed gun clubs on their own premises.

The Chicago and Morton Grove cases have been assigned to District Judge Harry D. Leinenweber, the Evanston case to District Judge Marvin E. Aspen, and the Oak Park case is District Judge Joan H. Lefkow.

The lawsuit against Morton Grove is, in essence, a historical echo: that community is generally considered to be one of the first in the nation to have adopted a flat ban on handgun ownership, and its ban was challenged up to the Supreme Court.  Morton Grove adopted its ban in 1981, five years after the District of Columbia adopted the handgun ban that the Supreme Court has just struck down.

The Seventh Circuit Court, in a December 1982 ruling in the Morton Grove case, found that the Second Amendment applied only to the federal government — relying upon the Supreme Court’s 1894 decision in Presser v. Illinois.  The Circuit Court rejected arguments in that case that Presser was no longer good law because the Supreme Court later incorporated much of the Bill of Rights into the Fourteenth Amendment so that specified rights did apply to state and local government, that the Presser decision was flawed, and that all of the Bill of Rights had been incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Supreme Court denied review of the challengers’ appeal on Oct. 3, 1983, leaving the village’s ordinance intact.  That is the same ordinance now under new challenge by the NRA, which had a role in the earlier litigation.

Full post as published by SCOTUSBLOG on July 01, 2008 (boomark / email).