“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.” (02/10/10)