Alan Gura, lawyer for the Chicago plaintiffs whose right to effectively defend their lives in their own homes has been abridged by the city’s ban on handgun possession, previously won 2008′s D.C. v. Heller, the case establishing that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess weapons against federal encroachment. Gura is responsible, then, for the rehabilitation and revival of one constitutional amendment already. In McDonald, rather than merely extending the Second’s reach, he is aiming to rehabilitate and revive the 14th Amendment as well.

However, the Supreme Court’s decision in late January to grant 10 of Gura’s 30 minutes of oral argument time to the National Rifle Association (NRA) seems likely to hurt chances that the Court will take the more dramatic route laid before them. The NRA isn’t a plaintiff in McDonald (though they were parties in an earlier version heard by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, which combined separate challenges to Chicago’s gun bans), and the organization’s intent is to emphasize the more limited and traditional method of incorporating the Second Amendment against the states via the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.

To sum up a very complicated legal argument quickly, Gura’s McDonald briefs do not rely solely on the traditional due process method. He also argued that 14th Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause was more clearly intended to accomplish such incorporation, in terms of both legal logic and history.

This is almost a “libertarian” vs. “Republican” argument taking shape. Gura’s effort in using the Privileges or Immunities clause is much more far-reaching and thus more “libertarian” than the NRA’s effort to use, the more typical for incorporation, Due Process clause.

It could be said that winning this case on Privileges or Immunities grounds would make everyone, not just gun owners, more free. Winning the case on Due Process grounds would be more specific and mostly help gun owners alone.

Take the time to read the entire article if you are interested in this case.