FLASH: Gun rights groups file suit to end unconstitutional Chicago gun ban!
Attorney Alan Gura, on behalf of a coalition of the Second Amendment Foundation and several Chicago Residents, filed suit this morning against the City of Chicago, challenging that city’s draconian gun ban laws. You can view a copy of the complaint here.
This suit is the necessary and logical second step towards restoring the Second Amendment as a viable force in American law. As you read from our prior coverage, the Heller decision applies only to the Federal government. A necessary second step is “incorporation” of the Second Amendment against the 50 states. As originally written, none of the Bill of Rights applied to the states. That was accomplished by the adoption of the 14th Amendment. The gun ban extremists argue that the Second Amendment has never been incorporated, the pro-gun activists argue that it has. Now we will have the answer.
This is a critical next step in the small, building block approach on the way towards fully restoring the Second Amendment.
Predictably, Chicago Mayor Dick Daly is squealing like a stuck pig.
From the story:
An angry Mayor Richard Daley on Thursday called the Supreme Court's overturning of the Washington D.C. handgun ban "a very frightening decision" and vowed to fight vigorously any challenges to Chicago's ban.
That challenge was not long in coming. Hours after the high court's ruling was made public Thursday, the Second Amendment Foundation and the Illinois State Rifle Association sued the city and the mayor in an effort to overturn Chicago's quarter-century ban on handguns.
City officials expressed confidence the city would prevail in any court challenge, asserting, among other things, that the 2nd Amendment as part of the Bill of Rights restricts the federal government and does not apply to state and local governments.
..."Does this lead to everyone having a gun in our society?" Daley asked while speaking at a Navy Pier event. "If they [the Supreme Court] think that's the answer, then they're greatly mistaken. Then why don't we do away with the court system and go back to the Old West, you have a gun and I have a gun, and we'll settle it in the streets if that's they're thinking."
"We think we're such an improved society," he added. "The rest of the world is laughing at us."
Mayor Daley and the gun ban extremists are claiming that the sky falling, and continue with their mantra of “reasonable restrictions” are permitted under Heller. Friends, what is "reasonable" about laws that have no impact on crime? That is the question that seems to allude these folks, and was actually the most shocking disconnect in today’s Heller decision, both majority and minority. Did they not learn from the failed experiment that was D.C. that gun control only disarms victims?
Luckily, gun rights proponents now get to ask that question in Court, and the government is going to have to start coming up with more than emotion to defend their laws.
A press release from the Second Amendment Foundation follows.
SAF FILES LAWSUIT CHALLENGING CHICAGO’S HANDGUN BAN
BELLEVUE, WA – Following Thursday’s 5-4 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment protects an individual civil right to keep and bear arms, and that a municipal gun ban violates that right, the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and the Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA) filed a federal lawsuit challenging the City of Chicago’s long-standing handgun ban. The case is McDonald v. City of Chicago.
“Chicago’s handgun ban has failed to stop violent crime,” SAF founder Alan Gottlieb stated. “It’s time to give the Constitution a chance.”
In addition to SAF and ISRA, plaintiffs include Chicago residents Otis McDonald, a retiree who has been working with police to rid his neighborhood of drug dealers, and who wants to have a handgun at his home; Adam Orlov, a former Evanston police officer; software engineer David Lawson and his wife, Colleen, a hypnotherapist, whose home has been targeted by burglars. Attorney Alan Gura, who argued the District of Columbia challenge before the high court, and Chicago area attorney David G. Sigale, represent the plaintiffs.
“Our goal,” Gura said “is to require state and local officials to respect our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Chicago’s handgun ban, and some of its gun registration requirements, are clearly unconstitutional.”
“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.”
“Chicago's registration scheme cries out for common-sense reform,” ISRA Executive Director Richard Pearson added.
Under the gun law currently in place, firearms must be re-registered annually.
“Each time,” Gura said, “a tax is imposed, forms must be filled out, photographs submitted. 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.”
He further noted that Chicago’s bizarre requirement that guns be registered before they are acquired often times makes registration impossible. The penalty for failure to comply with the registration scheme is that a gun not re-registered on time can never be registered again. Gura likened it to a requirement to dispose of a car if it is not re-registered on time with the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Find out more by visiting: www.ChicagoGunCase.com .
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