Chicago has the most absurdly restrictive gun laws in the United States; worse than New York, worse than DC. There is no legal civilian handgun ownership in the City of Chicago.
Chicago is also in the midst of a maelstrom of gang violence; bangers, armed with any damn weapon they want, are mowing each other and innocent bystanders down at a pace that looks likely to easily break the records set during Prohibition.
Fortunately, the US Court of Appeals is on the case, as it were, ruling that while gang bangers roam the streets unimpeded by law enforcement, the rigorously law-abiding citizen can not be trusted with firearms:
The unanimous three-
judgeorc panel ruled today that a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year, which recognized an individual right to bear arms under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment, didn’t apply to states and municipalities.“The Supreme Court has rebuffed requests to apply the second amendment to the states,” U.S. Circuit Judge orc Frank Easterbrook wrote, upholding lower court orc decisions last year to throw out suits against Chicago and its suburb of Oak Park, Illinois.
The Fairfax, Virginia-based NRA sued the municipalities in June 2008, one day after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller struck down a hand-gun ban in the U.S. capital district encompassing Washington.
As expected, the suits will go to the Supreme Court, which will hopefully rule that human rights – including the right to defend ones’ self, family, property and community – aren’t subject to the deranged whim of corrupt scumbag politicans.
Will this suit be the one that pushes Heller down to state level?
In Heller, the high court struck down Washington’s 32-year- old gun law, which barred most residents of the city from owning handguns and required that all legal firearms be kept unloaded and either disassembled or under trigger lock. Six residents had challenged the law, saying they wanted firearms available in their homes for self-defense.
“Heller dealt with a law enacted under the authority of the national government,” Easterbrook the chief orc wrote, “while Chicago and Oak Park are subordinate bodies of a state.”
There was a time local politicians said the same thing about the practice of owning other human beings; it was for the states to decide. We know how that turned out, don’t we?
States can’t morally infringe law-abiding free speech, religion, press, assembly, jury trials, protections against unreasonable search and seizure, cruel and unusual punishment; they can’t even stick soldiers in your rumpus room against your will. The right to defend ones’ life, family, community and property from lethal threats is easily as important as any of those – indeed, more important on a personal level.
Hopefully logic will prevail as it did last June, when this thing does get to the SCOTUS.
UPDATE: Enh. Never mind. The ruling makes sense on purely legal grounds and – given the NRA’s post-Heller strategy – could be good in the long run for gun rights.
Which is not to say that Chicago’s government’s approach to armed citizens is in any way moral or forgiveable, or that the anti-gun movement aren’t a bunch of vultures.
But that’s a battle for another day.
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