JUDGE ROY MOORE AND FOUNDATION FOR MORAL LAW FILE IN U.S. SUPREME COURT DEFENDING RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS FOR CHICAGO RESIDENTS AND ALL U.S. CITIZENS
November 23, 2009
Former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore and the Foundation for Moral Law, a religious liberties legal organization in Montgomery, Alabama, filed an amicus curiae brief in the United States Supreme Court today, arguing in the case of McDonald v. City of Chicago, Ill., that handgun bans in Chicago and Oak Park, Illinois, violate the God-given, inalienable right of self-defense and the right of the people to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment. (Read the Foundation's amicus brief in McDonald here.)
Last year in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court agreed with a brief Judge Moore and the Foundation filed in that case, ruling that the Second Amendment protected an individual right to keep and bear arms and that Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban was unconstitutional. The Foundation's brief filed today argues that the individual right under the Second Amendment is a “privilege or immunity” for all U.S. citizens protected under the 14th Amendment. Any state or city law, like Chicago's, that bans handguns for law-abiding citizens violates a historic and fundamental right under the U.S. Constitution.
Judge Roy Moore stated:
“Despite last year's ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the 2 nd Amendment, the City of Chicago stubbornly continues to restrict its law abiding citizens from owning handguns making it so the only ones in Chicago owning handguns are the criminals. We have filed a brief with the Supreme Court in this case reaffirming the right of the people to own guns for their own self-defense.”
In their brief, Judge Moore and the Foundation discuss the ancient and natural right of self-defense and self-preservation, which the Founders recognized as an inalienable right given by God. Second, the right to keep and bear arms is a “privilege or immunity” held by all United States citizens and protected by the 14 th Amendment. Based on the Court's clear holding in Heller, handgun bans in cities like Chicago violate that constitutional protection. Third, since the Court has held that the due process clause of the 14 th Amendment is “incorporated” against the states, the historic “right of the people to keep and bear arms” satisfies the criteria as a fundamental right necessary to American liberty and should also be incorporated against states and local governments.
The Foundation for Moral Law, a national non-profit legal organization, is located in Montgomery, Alabama, and is dedicated to restoring the knowledge of God in law and government through litigation and education relating to moral issues and religious liberty cases.
