Another "red letter" day tomorrow...

Tuesday, March 2, the US Supreme Court will hear McDonald vs City of Chicago as a follow-up to the DC vs Heller case in 2008. The decision in the latter case affirmed protection afforded all citizens by the Second Amendment... and many pundits out there would have you believe the former case is doing the same, but it isn't. McDonald vs Chicago isn't a Second Amendment case, it is a Fourteenth Amendment case... but it is a HUGE case, none the less. One that even people who don't care about gun rights should watch carefully.

Here's why...

Following the Civil War, the city of New Orleans was plagued (literally) by outbreaks of cholera that sprang from the waste of hundreds of cattle slaughterhouses up-river from the city. Anytime the water level dropped even a few inches, the city's fresh water supplies became choked with intestines and offal in all manner of decay and rot. To combat this problem, the State of Louisiana tried to force the slaughterhouses to move to new locations (provided by the State) down-river from the city. The butchers felt this violated both their XIII and XIV Amendment Rights. The State felt they were acting in the best interest of the people of New Orleans.

The Court decided that the Fourteenth Amendment protected the Rights of United States citizenship, but not the rights of citizenship of the individual States. More importantly, the majority opinion handed down by Justice Samuel Miller said that the Fourteenth Amendment did not infringe upon the government's ability to exercise police powers... in other words, to regulate and control an industry (the butchering of animals, in this case) at the expense of individual citizens or private corporations for the greater public good. The opinion further relegates the Fourteenth Amendment to apply ONLY to the rights and privileges of freed slaves in the various Southern States (although there is language that expressly denies this within Miller's opinion, the basic premise remains).

The dissenting opinions do an excellent job of showing how the State of Louisiana had taken the butcher's livelihood away and placed it in the hands of a State-run monopoly that would exercise complete control of the slaughter industry for at least 25 years (in reality, the monopoly existed until 1962).

Now, I admit that this whole thing seems to have very little to do with gun control laws... but bear with me.

The question arising from McDonald vs Chicago is whether or not the Second Amendment can limit regulation at a State, county or municipal level. If the Fourteenth Amendment applied only to the Rights and Privileges of United States citizenship, then the Second Amendment must also only apply to areas regulated and governed by the Federal government (the District of Columbia, for example... or Federal military reservations and installations). California is the focus of this case, because it is one of only six States that does not have a "right to bear arms" clause in its constitution... and thus, should not be limited in the manner in which it chooses to regulate the ownership and possession of a firearm by the Second Amendment. Cities like Chicago, Philadelphia and New York will do the same thing by showing how successful their gun control laws have been at curbing gun-related crimes and violence (insert sarcasm here) and that the Second Amendment doesn't have the reach to curb their laws and ordinances.

In short, this case will reflect whether or not the "powers that be" have the right to marginalize individual liberties and freedoms in the name of the "greater good", and I for one hope they decide that they DO NOT have that power.