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Puzzling through the doctrine and dicta of McDonald on the Second Amendment's limits

By Douglas A. Berman

As regular readers know, I have always had a hard time squaring the Heller opinion's doctrinal embrace of an individual Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms for self-defense with its dicta suggesting that former felons can still be criminally punished (sometimes severely) for gun possession.  The Supreme Court's explanation today in its McDonald opinion as to why and how Heller now applies to the states continues to puzzle me concerning the linkage of Second Amendment doctrine and dicta. As for doctrine, Justice Alito's chief opinion calls self-defense "a basic right" and explains that "in Heller, we held that individual self-defense is 'the central component' of the Second Amendment right. Slip op.at 19 (emphasis in original).  In addition, Justice Alito's opinion repeatedly describes Second Amendment rights as "fundamental," and it expressly rejects the Respondents' arguments that "in effect, ask us to treat the right recognized in Heller as a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees that we have held to be incorporated into the Due Process Clause...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on June 28, 2010 (boomark / email).