First Reports on McDonald

"Chicago To Join The USA" says Second City Cop:

First of all, Shortshanks [Mayor Daley] is going to lose out on tens of thousands in sales taxes as all gun shops are currently located in the suburbs. This amuses us.

Second, he's going to waste millions more attempting to make registering a gun nearly impossible. He's going to lose those cases in court because even if he wants to "tax" a Right guaranteed by by Constitution, he cannot make it so exorbitantly expensive that regular citizens are frozen out of the process. That means your Englewood resident is entitled to be able to own a legal handgun the same as a Gold Coast condo dweller is.

We may have to wait until June, but today it looks like Chicagoans were restored a Right that an out-of-control despot had deprived them of for years and the despot looked like a complete ass while it happened and was weakened politically once again.

More at The Volokh Conspiracy.

Justice Scalia said the “privileges or immunities” argument was “the darling of the professoraet Volokh Conspiracy commenters” but wondered why Gura would “undertake that burden.”

And "Justices Signal End To Chicago Gun Ban" from the Chicago Tribune:

At one point during the argument, Justice John Paul Stevens suggested the right to bear arms could be limited to homes. A liberal who dissented in the earlier gun-rights case two years ago, Stevens said the court could rule for the Chicago homeowners and say they had a right to a gun at home. At the same time, the court could say it is not "a right to parade around the street with a gun," Stevens said.

But that idea got no traction with the other justices, and a lawyer representing the National Rifle Association said the court should not adopt a "watered down version" of the 2nd Amendment.

Josh Blackman's blog:

Unsurprisingly, Justice Breyer fixated heavily upon the statistics showing the dangers of guns. If the right is incorporated, public safety decisions would be made by judges. If the right is not incorporated, public safety decisions would be made by legislators, who can consider the danger of weapons. Every case involving the second amendment, according to Justice Breyer, considers life versus guns.

To this, Gura replied that the Court should consider the case in the same fashion they considered Heller. Breyer proceeded to disagree with Heller, though he noted that “that was the dissenter’s view.” Justice Scalia retorted that Miranda rule releases dangerous people, and does not save lives. The Courts should not resolve questions on that basis.