In its second landmark Second Amendment case in two years, the U.S. Supreme Court, in McDonald v. City of Chicago, considers whether the new right to possess guns in the home, declared in its 2008 ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller, is incorporated as a restraint against state and local law through the 14th Amendment.
As intriguing as the incorporation issue is as a matter of constitutional law, the ultimate significance of McDonald to ordinary Americans may turn on a different issue, not formally posed by the case but difficult to avoid as the Court considers the reach of the Heller right. The “hidden” issue in McDonald is this: To what extent is the right to keep and bear arms different in nature from the other guarantees in the Bill of Rights?
