Otis McDonald, lead plaintiff
in the landmark gun rights case McDonald v. Chicago
(2010), died this weekend at the age of 80. As Brian Doherty noted
yesterday in his
obituary, McDonald was a South Side Chicago grandfather who
wanted a handgun to protect his family from local hoodlums and
fought all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to vindicate his
rights. Thanks to his victory, the Second Amendment now joins the
First Amendment and other Bill of Rights guarantees in applying to
both the federal government and to the states.
McDonald v. Chicago was a civil rights triumph in every
sense of the term. At its heart, the case dealt with the original
meaning of the 14th Amendment, the constitutional safeguard enacted
in 1868 to wipe away the last traces of slavery, particularly the
noxious “Black Codes” designed by the former Confederates to
prevent the freedmen from owning property, moving freely, and
keeping and bearing arms for self-defense.
The city of Chicago rejected
that original meaning and declared instead that state and local
governments should be free to restrict gun ownership as they saw
fit. Yet as Alan Gura, the lawyer who represented Otis McDonald
before the Supreme Court, told
the justices during the March 2010 oral arguments:
In 1868, our nation made a promise to the McDonald family that
they and their descendants would henceforth be American citizens,
and with American citizenship came the guarantee enshrined in our
Constitution that no State could make or enforce any law which
shall abridge the privileges or immunities of American
citizenship.
Otis McDonald forced the nation to keep its word, vanquishing
Chicago’s handgun ban in the process. “There was a wrong done a
long time ago that dates back to slavery time,” he
told the Chicago Tribune in 2010. “I could feel the
spirit of those people running through me as I sat in the Supreme
Court.” His win not only vindicated their spirit; it expanded the
constitutional liberties of all Americans going forward. He was a
civil rights hero who made his country a better place.
“He was absolutely among the nicest, most genuine and warmest of
people,” Alan Gura recalled of Otis McDonald. “We’re fortunate to
have had him in our lives and on the side of freedom.”
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