Front Sight, Press

Is anyone surprised…

Chicago, guns and the court

Source: The Chicago Tribune
August 1, 2008

Wilmette’s gun ban is history. Morton Grove, which passed the nation’s first handgun ban, followed suit on Monday. Those towns repealed their laws because the U.S. Supreme Court in June knocked down Washington D.C.’s handgun ban. Local officials say they don’t have the resources to fight challenges to their laws in court.

There’s another good reason for their decisions: They would lose. The Supreme Court has made that clear.

Yeah, you can only defy the Constitution for so long…

 

Chicago Mayor [Oberfuher] Richard Daley, though, insisted last week that the city would defend its handgun ban in court. "Morton Grove can do anything that it wants," Daley said. "I don’t look at this lightly—that, ‘Oh, because the Supreme Court’s done it we’re just gonna dismiss it and all of a sudden people can arm themselves.’ "

What’s law, history, and the Constitution when you’re a criminal empowerment Jihadist?

 

Like Daley, this page [The Chicago Fascist Tribune] strongly disagreed with the court’s ruling. We admire his stand on this issue. But the court ruling was clear and explicit: A blanket ban on handgun ownership is unconstitutional under the 2nd Amendment.

You know, it doesn’t really matter whether you agree or not…

 

Fighting in court to uphold Chicago’s ban might buy some time, but at a high cost. The city will pay for lawyers and then it will lose. Better to focus on a law the city can successfully defend.

How about trusting your law-abiding citizens to take care of themselves?

 

That doesn’t mean that Chicago should abandon its duty to protect public safety and its crucial mission to keep guns off the city’s streets.

And, of course, you’ve done such a wonderful job of that up to this point…

 

The Supreme Court’s decision said that the right to own a gun under the 2nd Amendment "is not unlimited." The court didn’t offer much elaboration on that. But that means there’s still likely to be ways for state and local governments to impose reasonable restrictions on the sale and ownership of firearms that don’t rise to a complete ban on possession. Such measures will have a decent chance of passing legal muster—if they are designed to ensure that firearms are permitted only to those who can use them safely for sport and for self-protection.

That is happening in Washington, D.C. The city recently replaced its handgun ban with a series of requirements for prospective gun owners. They can register a weapon if they clear a background check, pass a vision test and a written test of gun safety knowledge. They must keep their pistols at home, unloaded and either disassembled or equipped with trigger locks. The guns can be loaded and used only if the owner reasonably believes that he or she is in imminent danger from an attacker in the home.

What Washington D.C. is doing right now is criminal and will not stand. Of course, if we can just get the criminals to make appointments for their muggings and home invasions so that we can have our guns ready, it might just work…

 

The Supreme Court said a requirement that a lawful firearm in the home must be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock is unconstitutional unless it contains a provision that allows for self-defense. The courts will determine if the new Washington law goes far enough in protecting that right.

At last, one accurate statement.

 

Some gun advocates also accuse D.C. officials of concocting a cumbersome process to discourage gun ownership. Those officials have hinted that the city’s gun registration bureaucracy could be grindingly slow. Chicago already knows how to play that game. Anyone who’s grappled with the City Hall bureaucracy to get a tree trimmed or a building permit knows how Chicago’s bureaucracy can plod along.

So you’re admitting that you are willing to break the law through bureaucratic inertia to deny your citizens their civil rights?

 

We share Daley’s anger at the 5-4 ruling of the Supreme Court. It was based on flawed legal reasoning, ignored precedent and will lead to years of litigation about the constitutionality of various firearms restrictions.

And which part of that legal reasoning is “flawed”?

 

But there are no more appeals to that ruling. A handgun ban such as the one Chicago passed in 1982—well, the high court made clear that that’s dead.

Breaks my heart…

 

Chicago will have to prepare to live with that ruling and find other ways to protect the public. Might as well start now.

A good place to start would be to admit that you and the government of Chicago have failed utterly and completely to keep the public safe. Chicago is one of the most dangerous cities in the country. The second step would be to remember that you are a city in the United States and that your citizens have a natural God-given right to an effective self defense. It is clearly specified in the Constitution of this republic, and you cannot ignore it regardless of how hard you may try. Being a nanny city-state isn’t working, hasn’t worked and will never work.