McDonald v. Chicago
The Court held that the Second Amendment applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.
Overview
Chicago's handgun ban mirrored the DC law struck in Heller. Justice Alito, for a 5-4 majority, held that the right to keep and bear arms is fundamental to the nation's scheme of ordered liberty and is incorporated against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause. The plurality emphasized the Fourteenth Amendment's origins in protecting freedmen's arms after the Civil War. McDonald nationalized the individual right recognized in Heller, opening decades of litigation over which gun regulations survive constitutional scrutiny in state and federal courts alike.
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