Posted on 06/27/2008 1:19:36 PM PDT by Mr. Mojo
(CNSNews.com) - Following Thursday's Supreme Court ruling on gun rights, Second Amendment groups are preparing to challenge gun bans in cities other than Washington, D.C.
The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and the Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA) announced Thursday they already have filed a federal lawsuit challenging Chicago's long-standing handgun ban. The case is McDonald v. City of Chicago.
The National Rifle Association has said it also plans to challenge gun bans in Chicago and San Francisco.
"Chicago's handgun ban has failed to stop violent crime," said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb. In Chicago, it is illegal to possess a handgun within city limits, unless the gun was purchased before the 1982 ban took effect. (There are some exceptions for police officers and city leaders.)
Other guns -- not handguns -- can be registerd, but the process is onerous, critics complain.
Plaintiffs in McDonald v. City of Chicago include four city residents who want to keep handguns in their homes. (Otis McDonald is a retiree who has been working with police to rid his neighborhood of drug dealers and who wants a handgun for protection.)
Attorney Alan Gura, who argued the District of Columbia challenge before the Supreme Court,, and Chicago area attorney David G. Sigale, represent the plaintiffs.
"Chicago's handgun ban, and some of its gun registration requirements are clearly unconstitutional," Gura said.
"The right to defend our homes and families against those who would do them harm, whether a random criminal, violent ex-domestic partner, or other wrongdoer, is one of the principles upon which America was founded," Sigale said. "It is time the City of Chicago trust its honest, law-abiding residents with this Constitutional right."
Under current Chicago gun law, firearms must be re-registered annually. And each time that happens, a tax is imposed, forms must be filled out, photographs submitted, Gura said. "A person who owns more than one gun will find herself or himself constantly in the process of registering each gun as it comes due for expiration. If registration is to be required, once is enough."
Gura also complained about Chicago's requirement that guns be registered before they are acquired, something that often makes registration impossible. Guns that are not registered on time can never be registered again.
In Chicago, a city racked by gang violence, Mayor Richard Daley insisted on Thursday than guns in the home often end up killing children.
He said Thursday's Supreme Court ruling with made the streets even more dangerous. "The Supreme Court and Congress has no obligation to keep our country safe. That falls on the backs of mayors and local officials," Daley told the Chicago CBS station.
How interesting. I guess the "leaders" include the mayor.
What’s that they say about payback?
Go for it.
Good!!
“He said Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling with made the streets even more dangerous. “The Supreme Court and Congress has no obligation to keep our country safe. That falls on the backs of mayors and local officials,” Daley told the Chicago CBS station.”
*Snickers* He missed it on both.
And they are doing such a good job.
Dr. Sweet approves...
Actually it's Aldermen.
They are not only allowed to possess handguns in their homes, they're allowed to carry them. They're also issued badges.
L
The wheels are already rolling...
I can just imagine how much better qualified they are than we average citizens. What a joke!
not as many as swimming pools...
Daley needs to just get gangs outlawed. That'll fix it, right?
There was quite the kerfluffle here a few years back when a female Alderman, Dorothy "The Hat" Tillman pulled her pistol on the council floor and started waving it around.
The local rags did a brief 'investigation' and found that the Chicago City Council had given it's members 'police powers' and had in fact issued them badges and exempted them from the Chicago gun ban.
The matter quickly died down and nothing more was said about it.
Tillman btw is the same Aldercreature who demanded reparations for slavery from the US government in the form of "a condo and a Lexus".
A real piece of work that one....
L
“Daley told the Chicago CBS station.”
Poor mayor Daley. Yesterday he lost his personal monopoly on Firepower.
It occurs to me that when our Consitution was written, there were a lot of areas in the new-born country where there were no “police” departments, and the right to self-protection was essential.
It also occurs to me that there are now many areas in our country where the police can’t be relied upon to respond in a timely fashion, or are unwilling to even go.
We therefore, still have the right to self-protection, granted to us by the Constitution. Even though our founding fathers could not imagine the ghettos in our urban areas, they understood that we needed to be able to protect ourselves and our communities, whether we live in ghettos, the ‘burbs’, small villages, or rural outposts.
It's open season on them thar gun grabbin' varmits! And ah hates varmits!
Something I saw written elsewhere:
80% of gun crime is urban inter-gang battles. One gangbanger killing another gangbanger. That's not a problem: It's a self-cleaning oven.
Leftists won’t exclude these criminal deaths because it doesn’t fit their template.
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