Source: http://volokh.com/2011/07/08/ezell/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 10:23:29+00:00

Document:
The Seventh Circuit’s decision in Ezell v. Chicago is a tremendously important case for Second Amendment doctrine. The key rules from Ezell: use originalism from both 1791 and 1868 to determine if an activity is within the scope of the Second Amendment right. If it is, apply First Amendment doctrine, and make the standard of review more stringent when the activity is closer to the core of the right, and when the government is prohibiting rather than regulating. Generally speaking, when looking for guidance, look to Eugene Volokh.
As the above rules apply to the case at bar: The right to practice with firearms is an important ancillary to the core of the Second Amendment right, so Chicago’s ban on firing ranges is subject to not-quite-strict scrutiny.
Here’s how the Ezell court set forth the above standards.
[F]or some kinds of constitutional violations, irreparable harm is presumed. See 11A CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT ET AL., FEDERAL PRACTICE & PROCEDURE § 2948.1 (2d ed. 1995) (“When an alleged deprivation of a constitutional right is involved, most courts hold that no further showing of irreparable injury is necessary.”). This is particularly true in First Amendment claims. See, e.g., Christian Legal Soc’y, 453 F.3d at 867 (“[V]iolations of First Amendment rights are presumed to constitute irreparable injuries . . . .” (citing Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 373 (1976))). The loss of a First Amendment right is frequently presumed to cause irreparable harm based on “the intangible nature of the benefits flowing from the exercise of those rights; and the fear that, if those rights are not jealously safeguarded, persons will be deterred, even if imperceptibly, from exercising those rights in the future.” Miles Christi Religious Order v. Twp. of Northville, 629 F.3d 533, 548 (6th Cir. 2010) (internal alteration and quotation marks omitted); see also KH Outdoor, LLC v. City of Trussville, 458 F.3d 1261, 1272 (11th Cir. 2006). The Second Amendment protects similarly intangible and unquantifiable interests. Heller held that the Amendment’s central component is the right to possess firearms for protection. 554 U.S. at 592-95. Infringements of this right cannot be compensated by damages.
The answer requires a textual and historical inquiry into original meaning. Heller, 554 U.S. at 63435 (“Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them, whether or not future legislatures or (yes) even future judges think that scope too broad.”); McDonald, 130 S. Ct. at 3047 (“[T]he scope of the Second Amendment right” is determined by textual and historical inquiry, not interest-balancing.). McDonald confirms that when state- or local-government action is challenged, the focus of the original-meaning inquiry is carried forward in time; the Second Amendment’s scope as a limitation on the States depends on how the right was understood when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified. See McDonald, 130 S. Ct. at 3038-42.
Courts should follow the Supreme Court’s lead and treat “original public meaning as both a starting point and an important constraint on the analysis. See Heller, 554 U.S. at 610-19; McDonald, 130 S. Ct. at 3038-42. ” [fn. 11].
11 On this aspect of originalist interpretive method as applied to the Second Amendment, see generally AKHIL REED AMAR, THE BILL OF RIGHTS: CREATION AND RECONSTRUCTION 215-30, 257-67 (1998); Brannon P. Denning & Glenn H. Reynolds, Five Takes on McDonald v. Chicago, 26 J.L & POL. 273, 285-87 (2011); Josh Blackmun [sic, Blackman] & Ilya Shapiro, Keeping Pandora’s Box Sealed: Privileges or Immunities, The Constitution in 2020, and Properly Extending the Right to Keep and Bear Arms to the States, 8 GEO. J.L. & PUB. POL’Y 1, 51-57 (2010); Clayton E. Cramer, Nicholas J. Johnson & George A. Mocsary, “This Right Is Not Allowed by Governments That Are Afraid of the People“: The Public Meaning of the Second Amendment When the Fourteenth Amendment Was Ratified, 17 GEO. MASON L. REV. 823, 824-25 (2010); Steven G. Calabresi & Sarah E. Agudo, Individual Rights Under State Constitutions When the Fourteenth Amendment Was Ratified in 1868: What Rights Are Deeply Rooted in American History and Tradition?, 87 TEX. L. REV. 7, 11-17, 50-54 (2008); Randy E. Barnett, Was the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Conditioned on Service in an Organized Militia?, 83 TEX. L. REV. 237, 266-70 (2004); David B. Kopel, The Second Amendment in the Nineteenth Century, 1998 BYU L. REV. 1359; Stephen P. Halbrook, Personal Security, Personal Liberty, and “The Constitutional Right to Bear Arms”: Visions of the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment, 5 SETON HALL CONST. L.J. 341 (1995).
So what exactly is the standard of review?
“The City urges us to import the ‘undue burden’ test from the Court’s abortion cases…but we decline the invitation. Both Heller and McDonald suggest that First Amendment analogues are more appropriate, see Heller, 554 U.S. at 582, 595, 635; McDonald, 130 S. Ct. at 3045, and on the strength of that suggestion, we and other circuits have already begun to adapt First Amendment doctrine to the Second Amendment context, see Skoien, 614 F.3d at 641; id. at 649 (Sykes, J., dissenting); Chester, 628 F.3d at 682; Marzzarella, 614 F.3d at 89 n.4; see also Volokh, Implementing the Right to Keep and Bear Arms for Self-Defense, 56 UCLA L. REV. at 1449, 1452, 1454-55; Lund, The Second Amendment, Heller, and Originalist Jurisprudence, 56 UCLA L. REV. at 1376; Winkler, Heller’s Catch-22, 56 UCLA L. REV. at 1572.
For “laws restricting activity lying closer to the margins of the Second Amendment right, laws that merely regulate rather than restrict, and modest burdens on the right may be more easily justified. How much more easily depends on the relative severity of the burden and its proximity to the core of the right.” The Ezell court does not elaborate the doctrine for deciding lesser cases, because the instant case involves a prohibition very close to the core.

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