The Supreme Court suggested Tuesday it will strike down cities’ and States’ outright bans on handguns through the 14th Amendments Due Process clause.
The court has relied on that same clause — "no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law" — in cases that established a woman’s right to an abortion and knocked down state laws against interracial marriage among others.
In the transcript released just hours after the oral arguments, the question of incorporation seemed less at issue during the 1:16 minute oral arguments from both sides than whether the Second Amendment should be incorporated through the which clause; the “privileges and immunities” clause or that of the “due process” clause.
Alan Gura, the lawyer who represented the Chicago challengers (David and Colleen Lawson, Otis McDonald and Adam Orlov) was quickly put in his place by Chief Justice Roberts when he interrupted his opening remarks stating:
“Of course, this argument is contrary to the Slaughter-House cases, which have been the law for 140 years. It might be simpler, but it's a big -- it's a heavy burden for you to carry to suggest that we ought to overrule that decision.”
By that statement it was quickly established, that the later (due process), rather than the former was held by the court to be the most logical and likely approach the court would take.
It is a widely held public and scholarly opinion that the Second Amendment is not only a “Fundamental Right” according to Supreme Court jurisprudence, but that it was so fundament (to ordered liberty) that it was a pre-existing right simply codified by the Constitution itself.
http://www.examiner.com/x-7133-Boston-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2010m3d3-US-Supreme-Court-likely-to-incorporate-Second-Amendment