Act of Bravery
Otis W. McDonald and the Second Amendment, The Face of Gun Rights in America
By Frederick Jones and Sue Bowron
Create Space, LLC. Sept. 2012
ISBN-13 978-1479325023
128 pages, paperback, $14.95, eBook $2.99
Reviewed by Gila Hayes
In February, attorney Menashe Sasson’s interview cited Otis McDonald’s 2010 landmark gun rights victory at the US Supreme Court. While researching the case, I stumbled across Act of Bravery: Otis W. McDonald and the Second Amendment, The Face of Gun Rights in America written by McDonald’s nephew, Frederick D. Jones, and co-author, Sue Bowron.
I found Act of Bravery’s most inspirational aspect the portrayal of Otis McDonald’s humanity, the good and bad, growing up in a Louisiana sharecroppers’ large family in the ‘30s and ‘40s. McDonald’s story reminds us that when individuals resist states that infringe on human rights, good does indeed prevail.
Jones is an attorney and member of the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States. He recalls the day his uncle appeared before the Court. “Over a year had passed since my uncle Otis had called to say he was going to be a plaintiff in a Supreme Court case,” he begins. “Otis McDonald v. City of Chicago challenged the right of a local government to pass a law that superseded the Constitution of the United States,” he continues, explaining that the case disputed the constitutionality of “the 1983 Chicago ordinance that banned the use and ownership of handguns within city limits.” What, asked Otis McDonald, his fellow plaintiffs, and his attorneys, was the purpose of the fourteenth amendment and its intent that all Americans receive equal protection under the law? Although affirmed during reconstruction, doesn’t the fourteenth amendment continue to prohibit government discrimination and denial of basic human rights?
One of a dozen children raised by a sharecropper, Otis McDonald learned to read sitting with his father after supper most nights. He could read before first grade and loved school, but his schooling ended as he entered his early teens. After both his adoptive dad and his biological father died, he realized the farm was not where he wanted to grow old. McDonald moved to Chicago where he later enlisted in the Army.
McDonald served in post-war Germany, settling in Chicago after he was discharged. The military had not been kind to Blacks, nor were his early years in Chicago easy, but he persevered and moved up from janitorial work to complete an electrical engineering program at night school while working eight hours a day. He went on after that program to earn an associate degree in engineering.
A union member, McDonald was president of his local council, where he thrived as arbitrator between workers and management. The biography tells how he bought his home in Morgan Park, IL, describes the first burglary in which he and his family lost mostly home electronics, then the second burglary in which jewelry and long guns were taken. He installed an alarm and put bars on the windows. After another burglary, McDonald and his wife became hyper-vigilant and exhausted by being constantly on guard. Then he was attacked by two young thugs while he was driving down a neighborhood street. A drug dealer began operating out of a nearby house and the neighbors again burgled the McDonald home and garage.
Otis McDonald loved the outdoors. While hunting, he met a man who introduced him to the concealed carry movement in Illinois. Through these connections, McDonald was asked to be a plaintiff in a case to overthrow Chicago’s handgun ban. Act of Courage doesn’t detail the fights in the lower courts, relating only that as soon as the US Supreme Court decided District of Columbia v. Heller on June 26, 2008, the Illinois gun lobby filed what would become an equally monumental case: Otis McDonald v. City of Chicago. Attorney David Sigale, who is affiliated with the Network and practices in the Chicago area, joined forces with attorney Alan Gura who had argued the Heller case. Otis McDonald pressed the attorneys, “Are you in this for the long haul? All the way?” emphasizing that McDonald’s way was to always finish what he started.
Jones observes, “Otis was in for an education. As he studied the case and saw the mechanizations of the legal process, he began to see a giant chess board with pieces labeled to further the Second Amendment cause. While gun control was the primary issue, it was played against moving pieces of the Constitution.” He adds that McDonald was “stunned to find out that at least 55 amici curiae (translated as friends of the court) briefs were filed,” and how few of the petitions put before the supreme court are granted. He describe Otis McDonald’s awe at the majesty of the supreme court – both waiting outside before proceedings and sitting in the courtroom while the attorneys and the Justices labored to sort out the facts. The oral arguments were contentious, and many of the gun rights fighters didn’t share McDonald’s natural, inborn optimism. Nonetheless, the court held that, “The Second Amendment right of individuals to keep and bear arms in self defense applies against state and local governments as well as the federal government.”
Later, in a press conference after the decision was announced, McDonald credited Christ for giving him his wife and family, his attorneys and the organizations and individuals that took part in the case, the endurance for the fight, and he thanked God for the Supreme Court Justices. In all the ups and downs he experienced – from celebrating the win to his sorrow when family members died – McDonald saw the events of his life as “the logical consequence of what God had in store for him.”
I enjoyed Act of Bravery, and its portrayal of a human, fallible individual who was a great influence for good, not only for his family and close circle, but also good that ripples out far beyond his close circle to people who would never meet him but would benefit from his courage. McDonald died in the spring of 2014 at the age of 80.