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On Monday, January 25, the U.S. Supreme Court granted NRA’s motion to allow it to participate in the upcoming oral argument in McDonald v. City of Chicago.
“We are pleased with the Court’s decision to grant our motion,” said NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris W. Cox. “NRA’s solitary goal in McDonald is to ensure that our fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms applies to every law-abiding American in every state. We are hopeful that the Court will share our view that the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment clearly intended to apply the Second Amendment to the states.”
Last September, the Court agreed to consider the McDonald case, on appeal from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. That court incorrectly claimed that prior Supreme Court precedent prevented it from holding in favor of incorporation of the Second Amendment. NRA believes the Seventh Circuit should have followed the lead of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision in Nordyke v. King, which found that Supreme Court precedent does not prevent the Second Amendment from applying to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. As a party in McDonald, NRA looks forward to participating in the upcoming oral argument.
Former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement will be representing NRA at oral argument, which will occur on March 2. The NRA chose Solicitor General Clement for oral argument in this case because he is one of the leading Supreme Court advocates of our time and has argued dozens of cases before the Court. In the case at hand, he has already represented 251 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and 58 U.S. Senators in filing an historic and very important friend of the court brief, which makes a strong and effective case in favor of incorporation. Now that he is representing the NRA, he will just as strongly represent the interests of NRA members and all other Americans who believe the Second Amendment should apply equally throughout our nation. (A link to the congressional brief can be found here: http://www.nraila.org/media/PDFs/litigation/mcdonald_ac_congress..pdf)
During oral argument, Solicitor General Clement will ensure that the Court hears all the arguments for applying the Second Amendment to the states under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court could reach that result either through the Privileges or Immunities Clause (as the plaintiffs in the case have emphasized), or through the Due Process Clause (as the Supreme Court has chosen to apply nearly all of the other provisions of the Bill of Rights). The NRA’s solitary goal in this case is to ensure that the Supreme Court applies the Second Amendment to all Americans throughout the country, no matter which method the Court chooses to use.
As a party to the case, NRA also had the opportunity to file a reply brief to Chicago’s arguments. That effort was led by Stephen Poss and Kevin Martin of the firm Goodwin Procter, along with Stephen Halbrook and Solicitor General Clement. A link to the NRA’s reply brief, which was filed today, can be found here. | 
