How the Second Amendment became a state and local question
The Second Amendment did not reach a Chicago handgun ordinance simply because the amendment appears in the Bill of Rights. Heller first recognized an individual right against federal or District of Columbia action. McDonald then asked a different question: whether that right is fundamental enough to bind state and local governments through the Fourteenth Amendment. Separating those two questions, what the right is and which governments it binds, keeps McDonald in its proper place as an incorporation case rather than a stand-in for every gun-rights question.
The right and the level of government
District of Columbia v. Heller recognized that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense, unconnected to service in a state militia. Because the District of Columbia operates under federal authority, Heller answered a federal-government question. It said nothing directly about whether that same right constrained a city or state government.
Why incorporation was the central question
Chicago and its suburb Oak Park maintained handgun restrictions after Heller, on the theory that Heller's holding applied only to federal and D.C. action. Residents challenged those local restrictions, presenting the Court with a question distinct from Heller's: whether the Second Amendment right was fundamental enough, deeply rooted in the nation's history and essential to ordered liberty, to apply against state and local governments through the Fourteenth Amendment.
McDonald v. Chicago
McDonald v. Chicago held that the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense is fundamental and applies to the states. Four justices reached that result through the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause, the same incorporation path used throughout this unit; Justice Thomas separately reached the same result through the Privileges or Immunities Clause. Either way, the local handgun restrictions could no longer stand against an incorporated individual right.
What the holding does and does not establish
McDonald answers an incorporation question: which level of government the right binds. It does not by itself supply the detailed rules courts use to evaluate a specific modern gun regulation. That separate methodology question was addressed later, in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which held that a firearm regulation must be consistent with the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation, and in United States v. Rahimi, which clarified that this historical test requires a well-established and representative analogue, not an identical historical twin, and upheld a federal law disarming individuals subject to domestic-violence restraining orders. McDonald remains the incorporation anchor; Bruen and Rahimi answer a different, later question about how to evaluate a regulation once incorporation is no longer in dispute.
Current-law update (not a required AP case): in Wolford v. Lopez (2026), the Supreme Court applied the Bruen historical-analogue framework and held unconstitutional Hawaii's default rule barring licensed carry on private property open to the public unless the owner gave express authorization. The case does not change McDonald's required-case role: McDonald remains the incorporation case students must know for AP.
| Case | Question answered |
|---|---|
| Heller | Does the Second Amendment protect an individual right (against federal and D.C. action)? |
| McDonald | Does that right bind state and local governments? (Incorporation) |
| Bruen and Rahimi | How do courts evaluate a specific regulation? (Historical tradition; well-established, representative analogue) |
Why this is also a federalism case
McDonald belongs in more than a gun-rights discussion. Before McDonald, a city could regulate handguns in ways the federal government could not, because the Second Amendment bound only the federal government. After McDonald, incorporation closed that gap, showing directly how a change in which level of government a right binds can override a local policy choice that local officials preferred to keep in place. On an exam, this is a clean example of the national government (through the courts) limiting state and local policymaking.
Public order and safety across amendments
Public-order disputes are not limited to gun regulation. Under the Eighth Amendment, courts interpret the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment in disputes that include death-penalty statutes. Under the Fourth Amendment, courts and policymakers balance privacy against public safety in areas such as government access to digital information and telecommunications metadata. "Public safety" is an interest to analyze, not a universal constitutional test that automatically defeats an individual-rights claim.
Reading an incorporation scenario
Three steps keep you accurate. First, identify the right. Second, identify the level of government being challenged (federal, D.C., state, or local). Third, ask whether the dispute is about whether the right applies at all, which is an incorporation question, or about how a particular regulation is judged, which is a methodology question. If a scenario involves a city ordinance and asks why a federal-government decision did not settle the matter, the answer is almost always incorporation.