Otis McDonald, R.I.P. (The Man Who Got the Second Amendment Applied to States and Localities)

The American hero who showed both physical, emotional, and
political braveness in his role as lead plaintiff in the
groundbreaking 2010 Supreme Court case McDonald v. Chicago
had died at age 80, as reported by his
hometown paper the Chicago Tribune.

McDonald saw his Chicago neighborhood plummeting in quality of
life, the very safety of himself and his neighbors sometimes
threatened by people who showed little respect for other people’s
life or safety.

He thought it was unjust that his city essentially barred him
and his neighbors from owning the most common tool of
self-protection, the handgun.

In the wake of the 2008 Heller decision (which I wrote
a book about,
Gun Control on Trial), which prohibited the federal
government from violating our Second Amendment right to own
commonly used weapons for self-defense in the home, Mr. McDonald
became lead plaintiff in a case that went to the Supreme Court in
2010, challenging the city of Chicago’s ban on handgun
ownership.

McDonald won and the right to self-defense in the home via the
Second Amendment was applied to the states and localities via the
14th Amendment.

I wrote about McDonald and his case for Reason back in
our October 2010 issue in a cover story called “You’ve
Come a Long Way, Baby”:

From that story, summing up McDonald’s struggle, and his
character:

The lead plaintiff, Otis McDonald, is a 76-year-old father of
eight and grandfather of more than he can count; he rose from a
maintenance engineer at the University of Chicago to head of his
union local. McDonald had been embattled by drug dealers, suffering
five break-ins in the Chicago home he shares with his wife. “I had
a troubled neighborhood,” McDonald says. “I was pissed off about
the way these kids that had grown up playing basketball in my
backyard” had become a threatening gang. When you drive down his
street, he says, “you don’t get by unless they let you get by.” He
would see kids he’d known since they were 3 running down his alley,
shooting at cars.

“I helped as much as I could help with their parents,” McDonald
says, “until they told me they didn’t want to hear from me anymore
in regards to them. I was just fed up. I had to find somebody, some
organization, something with the resources and power, and then I
knew that I could couple that with myself, with guts and the nerve
to do what needed to be done.” McDonald started attending gun
rights rallies down in Springfield. “I learned a lot about this
Washington, D.C., case,” he says, “and that’s what made me know the
Lord was guiding me. I just felt so sure they were going to win the
case.” A friend McDonald met at a gun rally told Gura about him.
When Gura needed clients, the two met and took to each other
instantly…..McDonald recalls telling Gura: “Are you willing to go
all the way? Then I’m your man, with the name and all. Furthermore,
we are going to win.”….

And as I wrote about
my first occasion interviewing McDonald, the day his case was
heard before the Court in March 2010:

Let me tell you something else about Otis McDonald: If you are
lucky enough to meet the guy, you’re going to love him. Really. In
about a half hour of conversation, both one-on-one and in a small
group, the guy was devastatingly charming, in a completely
unstudied way. He’s compelling and convincing and real, telling
quotidian stories about being late for planes and late-night
fishing; and equally so when getting historical and cosmic about
the arc of his life and the role he knows he’s playing in his
country’s history. One minute laughing and light, the other giving
a sincerely tear-jerking account of the pride and gratitude he
feels toward everyone else, especially the younger generation,
advancing the scholarship and advocacy of his and his fellow
Americans’ rights. After that half hour, I was on this
guy’s side, just as a fellow human being. And a dream client
for a civil rights case like this to boot, as the lawyers present
agreed enthusiastically.

That the city of Chicago prevents this man from making the best
choice available to him to protect himself and his family from the
very real threats that surround him is, simply and with no
constitutional history or theory required, wrong…..McDonald, his
fellow plaintiffs, and the rest of Chicago will because of his
efforts be able to exercise a core human right unmolested. That is
great news…

It remains great news, and a great accomplishment from a great
American, alas now passed.