NRA Files Second Amendment Cases in Illinois, California
NRA-ILA reports that the NRA has filed five lawsuits, challenging handgun bans similar to the one overturned by the Supreme Court in DC.
The San Francisco lawsuit challenges a local ordinance and lease provisions that prohibit possession of guns by residents of public housing in San Francisco. NRA is joined in that suit by the California Rifle and Pistol Association and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
The Chicago case challenges a handgun ban nearly identical to the law struck down yesterday in Washington, D.C. The other Illinois suits challenge handgun bans in the suburban towns of Evanston, Morton Grove and Oak Park.
All five suits raise the issue of the application of the Second Amendment against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, known in constitutional law as "incorporation." Because Washington, D.C. is not a state, incorporation was not specifically addressed in yesterday's Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, but the decision did repeatedly equate the Second Amendment to the First and Fourth Amendments, which have applied to the states for 80 years.