Chicago Gun Ban Case to Determine Gun Rights For All States
The ruling struck down the Chicago handgun ban, thus opening the door to legal self-defense by Windy City residents. Alan M. Gottlieb joined attorney Alan Gura and Chicago resident Otis McDonald on the steps of the United States Supreme Court TODAY and heard the court’s ruling in the historic McDonald v. City of Chicago gun rights case filed by SAF, the Illinois State Rifle Association and four Chicago residents.
The U.S. Supreme Court heard the case to decide whether the right to keep and bear arms secured by the Second Amendment protects Americans from overreaching state and local governments.
The Supreme Court case is of paramount importance to American citizens, to see that their constitutional rights are respected not only by the Congress, but by state and local governments.
Death Toll Mounts in Chicago
Fifty-two people shot, eight of them fatally in a single Chicago weekend, yet Mayor Richard Daley appears poised to go down screaming in his opposition to the Second Amendment Foundation’s lawsuit to overturn his city’s handgun ban.
Chicago has become a slaughterhouse where defenseless victims are terrorized by armed thugs who have taken full advantage of an unarmed populace. Daley and his predecessors who perpetuated this ban are wading knee-deep in the blood of hundreds of crime victims who should have had the means to defend themselves.
The U.S. Supreme Court struck down Chicago’s handgun ban, so the city will likely do what Washington, D.C., did when its own ban was overturned two years ago: Put in place all sorts of restrictions to make it tougher to buy guns and easier for police to know who has them.
Prospective gun owners in D.C. now are required to take expensive training courses that include spending one hour on a firing range (there isn’t one in D.C.) and several hours in a classroom learning about so called gun safety. They also must pass a 20 question test based on D.C.’s highly restrictive firearm laws.
They also have to be fingerprinted, pay huge fees and jump many other hurdles.
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley says he’s encouraged by what he sees in D.C. and vows not go down without a fight.
Year after year the statistics have piled up yet Mayor Daley has stubbornly defended the city’s ban. While he has luxuriated at his vacation home with the safety of armed bodyguards, the bodies of Chicago crime victims have stacked up like cordwood.
Monday we should have a ruling from the Supreme Court that puts an end to this insanity, and gives the citizens of Chicago back their right to defend themselves. Daley thinks his constituents should be content to call 911 and wait for help to arrive while they’re being shot, stabbed, raped, robbed or beaten. Those crimes happen fast, and when seconds count, Chicago police are minutes away.
We took Daley to court because we trust his citizens more than he does with their self-defense rights. Chicago residents have endured the terror of public disarmament for almost three decades, and all they have to show for it is a body count. Mayor Daley should be ashamed.
The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) was delighted to bring this case in cooperation with the Illinois State Rifle Association and the four local plaintiffs. We are in this fight because a gun ban is no less onerous to civil rights in Chicago than it was in the District of Columbia. Such a law cannot be allowed to stand unchallenged.
