The issue before the court is 14th Amendment incorporation of the Second Amendment to protect from state infringement the individual right to gun ownership, recognized in DC Gov v. Heller (decided in the Appeals court as Parker et al. v. DC Gov).

The Parker/Heller conclusions have already decided all the courts need to decide on gun rights and firearms policy. Fourteenth Amendment incorporation will not foreclose the national policy option the courts have already opened the path for. It will only overburden the courts with a completely unnecessary constitutional mess.

A crude draft is at http://www.potowmack.org/McD2.pdf. It is about twice too long for the court. The approach is aggressive. The deadline for filing has been extended to the 2nd week of January.

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US v. Alfonso Lopez

The Potowmack Institute will eventually make all the briefs available in this case. At present there are two briefs available.

The terms of gun ownership are not a tempest in culture war teacup between gun lovers and gun haters. They involve the most fundamental political issues of law, government and citizenship. These are the issues that are at stake in US v. Emerson.

What is at stake in the Texas Justice Foundation's amicus curiae brief in Lopez (67K) is not gun rights but the Commerce Clause. Rightwing agendas become very interesting here. The brief refers to the "infamous" US v. Darby (1941) decision which was the culmination of the New Deal constitutional revolution without ever mentioning that Darby upheld the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 which established the forty hour work week as national law. The gun lobby becomes an electoral ally in a larger agenda. Most gun owners, however, have to work for a living. No one really represents their interests either as workers or citizens.

Academics for the Second Amendment, the Second Amendment Foundation, Congress of Racial Equality, National Association of Chiefs of Police, and American Federation of Policy in support of neither party.