On November 23, 2009, our firm filed an amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in support of petitioners’ challenge to an ordinance banning handguns in Chicago. The amicus brief argues that the Chicago handgun ban unconstitutionally abridges petitioners’ right to keep and bear arms, a privilege or immunity belonging to them as United States citizens protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. It also explains that no wholesale change in the Supreme Court’s Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence is required to rule that the Chicago ordinance unconstitutionally abridges petitioners’ right to keep and bear arms. Further, it asserts that incorporation of the right to keep and bear arms into the Due Process Clause would result in weak and potentially transitory protection of that right.
Our amicus brief was filed on behalf of Gun Owners of America, Inc., Gun Owners Foundation, Gun Owners of California, Inc., Maryland Shall Issue, Inc., DownsizeDC.org, Conservative Legal Defense and Education Fund, The Lincoln Institute for Research and Education, U.S. Border Control, and U.S. Border Control Foundation.