Posted on 09/30/2009 6:58:32 PM PDT by lex33
September 30, 2009
BY ABDON M. PALLASCH AND FRAN SPIELMAN Staff Reporters The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Wednesday to hear a challenge to Chicago’s strictest-in-the-nation handgun ban likely means the other holster is ready to fall on the ban, advocates on both sides of the issue seemed to agree Wednesday.
“A year from now there will not be a Chicago handgun ban,” said Alan Gura, the attorney representing the gun owners fighting the ban.
The high court’s five-member conservative majority last year threw out Washington, D.C.’s gun ban in the District of Columbia v. Heller case, but stopped short of invalidating the rest of the country’s handgun bans because that case dealt with federal bans, not local ones.
But gun control advocates and even city of Chicago officials have been bracing for the high court’s firmer embrace of the Second Amendment, which includes a right to bear arms.
“It’s going to be very difficult for Chicago not to have to make the adjustments D.C. had to make,” said Paul Heimke, president of the Brady Campaign against Gun Violence.
At a news conference in Chicago Wednesday, Gura predicted the crime rate will drop in Chicago if handguns are legalized again, because, he said, would-be burglars would opt not to break into homes for fear owners could be armed.
“I want to be able to protect myself in my own home. This is a right that we have that has been moved away from us, and we should have it back,” said Otis McDonald, 76, a plaintiff in the case against the city’s ban and a retired janitor. He says his neighborhood of Morgan Park has gotten rougher in recent years. “I don’t have any intention of going out there and shooting up anybody. The people who want to control me — these are the people I want to protect myself from.”
Even though she was not harmed, Colleen Dawson said she wishes she had a handgun when some men tried to break into her Northwest Side home last year.
Dawson, 51, said the court’s action should be a message to Mayor Daley and other gun-control advocates to “begin looking at a handgun as a tool given to us as a birthright by the constitution to defend ourselves.”
Growing up in Englewood, Dawson said her grandmother always kept a handgun in her apron pocket. She’d like the same right.
Chicago Police scoff at the notion that more handguns will lower the city’s crime rate.
“The logic they are using, that homeowners’ homes will not get burglarized, is ridiculous. You usually do not burglarize a home that is occupied,” said Mark Donohue, president of the Fraternal Order of Police.
A 1988 Emory University study, Heimke said, showed “if you keep a gun in your home, it’s 21 times more likely to injure you or your family than a bad guy. It gets used by a depressed teen to commit suicide, or you think it’s a burglar but it turns out to be a neighbor or a brother-in-law.”
Ever since last year’s Heller decision, which Mayor Daley called a “frightening” decision that “changed the rules” of inner-city policing, city attorneys have been preparing for the Supreme Court to revisit the issue.
Law Department spokeswoman Jenny Hoyle said Wednesday that city officials “are obviously concerned about what a final decision could mean for Chicago.” But Hoyle said city attorneys remain “encouraged” by some of the language the Supreme Court used in overturning Washington’s ban.
“The Heller decision didn’t say there has to be unrestricted access and ownership [of] handguns. They allowed for the possibility that some restrictions might be appropriate,” she said.
In December, the D.C. Council replaced its overturned law with new regulations that require gun owners to receive five hours of safety training and register their firearms every three years. Gun owners would face criminal background checks every six years.
At the time, Daley hinted strongly that he intended to use the city’s home-rule power to mimic the D.C. changes.
Of the 511 murders that happened in Chicago last year, 402 happened outdoors and the vast majority involved one gang member shooting another gang member, according to police statistics.
Gura admitted local governments have more rights to restrict gun possession outdoors.
But Richard Pearson of the illinois State Rifle Association noted the state legislature has four bills pending to legalize “concealed carry” laws, and he thinks passing them would likewise lower the crime rate in Chicago.
“They have turned Chicago into a crime capital,” Pearson said.
Gura and Pearson said other cities with less restrictive gun laws such as New York and L.A. have lower crime rates.
That’s because New York state and California have better gun restrictions at the state level, Heimke said. He said if more local communities had laws as strict as Chicago’s that would have lowered Chicago’s crime rate.
“I know a lot of the bad guys in Chicago come over to Indiana to get their guns,” Heimke said. “Every time I drive from Indiana to Chicago, nobody sees what I’m bringing in. If other communities took the same approach as Chicago, we would be even safer.”
But McDonald said the current law only protects criminals.
“We worked all our lives, paid taxes, did the right thing in life and here we are vulnerable to somebody who never went to school, is never going to go to school, and is living off of what they can get out of us — that's what it’s all about,” McDonald said.
Paging Mr. Lott.
I’ve taken the liberty of adding “banglist” to the keywords section for you. Take note.
That’s DOCTOR Lott....
;-)
Yeah, that was a great press conference. I thought Daley was gonna pee his pants and break down and cry.
Did my heart good.
Won't matter one bit when violent crime plummets after lifting the ban, he'll be out front proclaiming guns evil.
He'll have to fear the people, as the Founders intended. Like he's supposed to. Poor thing.
Bump and ping...
It would be a step in the right direction but we still have a long way to go. “Bearing arms” is not limited to patrolling my living room. Every American citizen has an inherent, inalienable right to own, keep, and bear arms openly in the public way, or on their private property.
Actually, let me amend that: every freeborn person on the planet Earth has the same inherent and inalienable rights, regardless of what country they live in, and any laws which infringe are usurpations of our the liberties granted us by our Creator.
Thank you.
In Chicago, crime is only allowed on the part of city government.
“An armed society is a polite society.”
“...A 1988 Emory University study, Heimke said, showed “if you keep a gun in your home, it’s 21 times more likely to injure you or your family than a bad guy. It gets used by a depressed teen to commit suicide, or you think it’s a burglar but it turns out to be a neighbor or a brother-in-law.”...”
Just what we would expect from Emory. Of course the study does not calculate the value of deterrence. Emory U. did not compare nearby Kennesaw, Georgia’s crime rate to that of the Chicago area’s Morton Grove or it would have found that Kennesaw’s pro gun laws had a positive effect while Morton Grove’s anti-gun laws increased break ins and muggings.
“...Chicago Police scoff at the notion that more handguns will lower the city’s crime rate...”
That’s the HALE Button, folks...had all’s I can take, and I can’t takes no more...
Scoff? SCOFF? People are DYING while they “scoff”???
Fine. Scoff away. Then all of you Chicago LEOs - YOU DAMN WELL BETTER PROVIDE 24/7/365 PERSONAL PROTECTION for EVERY ONE OF THE TAXPAYING CITIZENS OF CHICAGO - and I mean STANDING RIGHT BY THEIR SIDE every minute of the day. No let up... No coffee and donut breaks... no quick visit-to-the-local-brothel breaks...Nothing. You either stand by the citizens’ sides and provide direct protection against thuggery, murder, rape...
...Or shut the hell up, get out of the way, and know your damned place, PUBLIC SERVANTS.
After all...”to Serve and Protect” right? Or is that now “to Enforce and Oppress?”
So - by that “scoffing” line of thinking, every citizen that gets MURDERED means YOU Chicago LEOs FAILED at your job! YOU’RE as responsible for the murder as the murderer - IF you support keeping law-abiding citizens disarmed.
Harsh? I think not. Citizens have a RIGHT not to be murdered. LEOs better thank God above that the majority of the citizenry are on your side every day and have your six; otherwise you’d be overwhelmed by the scum of the earth.
Carrying a firearm is a RIGHT. Protecting your LIFE is THE most Basic Human Right.
DEAL with it.
My apologies to the good Cops out there who understand this simple fact. You guys need to get the Blue Brotherhood in line on this (not easy, I know).
Thanks for posting, lex33.
I have to tell you: If you added together everyone killed by the AK-47 and its imitators since their production began, the number of victims is LESS than the number of babies killed in the USA in the first 10 years of legalized abortion!
Having noted that fact, the AK is still an excellent tool, and is one more reason why all REAL Americans must put our 2nd Amendment FIRST!!
haledude, the simpler answer to these revenue enhancement officers is to disarm themselves first and prove the theory...
Yeah, that’ll happen...When monkeys fly out of my butt...
From now on, my only response is:
Be armed. Always. Everywhere. Period.
If the police can’t/won’t protect the citizenry, WE WILL do it ourselves.
LFOD
I wonder what the rate is for burglars breaking into the homes of police officers. If it is substantially lower than for the general public there must be a reason.
Thanks. I did not know!
From Reason Mag regarding the study in question:
But since Kellermann and Reay considered only cases resulting in death, which Gary Kleck's research indicates are a tiny percentage of defensive gun uses, this conclusion does not follow. As the researchers themselves conceded, "Mortality studies such as ours do not include cases in which burglars or intruders are wounded or frightened away by the use or display of a firearm. Cases in which would-be intruders may have purposely avoided a house known to be armed are also not identified." By leaving out such cases, Kellermann and Reay excluded almost all of the lives saved, injuries avoided, and property protected by keeping a gun in the home. Yet advocates of gun control continue to use this study as the basis for claims such as, "A gun in the home is 43 times as likely to kill a family member as to be used in self-defense."
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