A Prayer for the Health of Otis McDonald.

Mr. Otis McDonald, a man who stood tall for full citizenship rights of all Americans. He stood victoriously at the Supreme Court for the right of every American to protect and defend their family. He stood for us to be safe in our homes. A courageous man who made us proud.

Mr. McDonald is currently in a fight for his life as he battles metastatic cancer. Today, he needs us to unite and stand for him. We are requesting your prayers for Mr. McDonald and his family during this time of his serious illness.

McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 3025 (2010), is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that determined whether the Second Amendment applies to the individual states. The Court held that the right of an individual to "keep and bear arms" protected by the Second Amendment is incorporated by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and applies to the states. The decision cleared up the uncertainty left in the wake of District of Columbia v. Heller as to the scope of gun rights in regard to the states.

Initially the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit had upheld a Chicago ordinance banning the possession of handguns as well as other gun regulations affecting rifles and shotguns, citing United States v. Cruikshank, Presser v. Illinois, and Miller v. Texas. The petition for certiorari was filed by Alan Gura, the attorney who had successfully argued Heller, and Chicago-area attorney David G. Sigale. The Second Amendment Foundation and the Illinois State Rifle Association sponsored the litigation on behalf of several Chicago residents, including retiree Otis McDonald.

The oral arguments took place on March 2, 2010. On June 28, 2010, the Supreme Court, in a 5–4 decision, reversed the Seventh Circuit's decision, holding that the Second Amendment was incorporated under the Fourteenth Amendment thus protecting those rights from infringement by local governments. It then remanded the case back to Seventh Circuit to resolve conflicts between certain Chicago gun restrictions and the Second Amendment.

McDonald challenged four broad aspects of Chicago's gun registration law, which, according to the plaintiffs:

• Prohibit the registration of handguns, thus effecting a broad handgun ban
• Require that guns be registered prior to their acquisition by Chicago residents
• Mandate that guns be re-registered annually, with another payment of the fee
• Render any gun permanently non-registrable if its registration lapses

In addition to claiming the Second Amendment should be incorporated through the selective incorporation process, McDonald is unique among post-Heller gun cases in that it asked the court to overturn the Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1873). Slaughter-House determined that the 14th Amendment's Privileges or Immunities Clause did not apply the Bill of Rightsto the actions of states (and by extension, local governments). If it had been overturned, the Selective Incorporation process may have become unnecessary, since the entire Bill of Rights, including the 2nd Amendment, would arguably be applied to the states.

In attempting to overturn Slaughter-House, this case garnered the attention and support of both conservative and liberal legal scholars interested in its potential application in areas outside of firearms law. Their interest was that if Slaughter-House had been overturned, it would have been possible that constitutional guarantees such as the right to a jury in civil cases, right to a grand jury in felony cases, and other parts of the Bill of Rights, as well as future court rulings and existing federal precedent, not universally guaranteed in actions by the states, would have been applied against the states automatically.

In his concurring opinion, Justice Thomas alone supported overturning the Slaughter-House and Cruikshank decisions, proposing that "the right to keep and bear arms is a privilege of American citizenship that applies to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause."

Writing for the majority, Justice Alito held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment right recognized in Heller. Writing a concurring opinion, Justice Thomas reached the same conclusion regarding the incorporation issue on different grounds: Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.The majority decision also reaffirmed that certain firearms restrictions mentioned in District of Columbia v. Heller are assumed permissible and not directly dealt with in this case. Such restrictions include those to "prohibit...the possession of firearms by felons or mentally ill" and "laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms"

If anyone would like to read the specific case where the NRA sued the City of Evanston with regard to the Heller case and Evanston CAPITULATED you can find it here.