by Dave Workman
Senior Editor

While acknowledging that “no other substantive Bill of Rights protection has been regulated nearly as intrusively” as the Second Amendment, the City of Chicago maintains in its brief to the Supreme Court in the challenge to its handgun ban that such bans should be allowed in order to maintain what it calls “a system of ordered liberty.”

It is a theme found repeatedly in the 106-page brief filed by the city, laying out its case in McDonald v. City of Chicago, brought against the city in June 2008 by the Second Amendment Foundation, Illinois State Rifle Association and four individual plaintiffs. Surprisingly, at some points in the brief, it appears the city is mistaking the plaintiffs in this case with the National Rifle Association, which filed a separate lawsuit against the city on the day after SAF and ISRA filed their action. NRA also sued the adjacent Village of Oak Park, while SAF and ISRA did not.

However, when the Supreme Court decided to accept a challenge to the Chicago ban, it agreed only to hear the SAF/ISRA case, essentially leaving the NRA case on hold. On Jan. 4, the NRA made the unusual request of the Supreme Court to be given time to join in the oral argument, scheduled for Mar. 2. SAF attorney Alan Gura opposed the request.

According to SCOTUSBlog, an on-line commentary about Supreme Court activities, the NRA motion was filed by Paul D. Clement, the former Solicitor General in the Bush Administration. Clement came under fire two years ago for his tepid brief in the Heller case in which he put forth the argument that the right to have a handgun in one’s home “it should be subject to regulation by government that would not have to meet the strictest constitutional test,” according to remarks on the Heller case on SCOTUSWiki, another on-line reference covering the high court. Both the SCOTUSBlog and SCOTUSWiki articles were written by Lyle Denniston.

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