Posted on 01/31/2010 7:32:19 AM PST by KeyLargo
THE PUBLIC FACE OF GUN RIGHTS
The Supreme Court will decide the legality of the city's handgun ban in McDonald v. City of Chicago. This is Otis McDonald.
By Colleen Mastony Tribune reporter
January 30, 2010
From behind the wheel of his hulking GMC Suburban, 76-year-old Otis McDonald leads a crime-themed tour of his Morgan Park neighborhood. He points to the yellow brick bungalow he says is a haven for drug dealers. Down the street is the alley where five years ago he saw a teenager pull out a gun and take aim at a passing car.
Around the corner, he gestures to the weed-bitten roadside where three thugs once threatened his life.
"I know every day that I come out in the streets, the youngsters will shoot me as quick as they will a policeman," says McDonald, a trim man with a neat mustache and closely cropped gray hair. "They'll shoot a policeman as quick as they will any of their young gangbangers."
To defend himself, McDonald says, he needs a handgun. So, in April of 2008, the retired maintenance engineer agreed to serve as the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging Chicago's 28-year-old handgun ban. Soon after, he walked into the Chicago Police Department and, as his attorneys had directed, applied for a .22-caliber Beretta pistol, setting the lawsuit into motion. When that case is argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on March 2, McDonald will become the public face of one of the most important Second Amendment cases in the nation's history.
Amid the clamor of the gun-rights debate, McDonald presents a strongly sympathetic figure: an elderly man who wants a gun to protect himself from the hoodlums preying upon his neighborhood.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
I really hope your #7 is a joke. In my heart of hearts, I’m afraid it isn’t.
Thanks for the ping Joe.
I’d figure this story to have more postings, but then again, it hit every pro-gun mail list and page pretty much simultaneously. ;)
Shocked me, a decent and fair look from the Chicago Trib. They may be risking their access to local pols here. lol
Yeah, the cartoon is a spoof on PC brainwashing. The giveaway is Chuckie Bloomer/Chuck Schumer.
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