BY DAVE WORKMAN – On Monday, the Second Amendment Foundation filed another lawsuit against the City of Chicago, challenging the city’s new gun control ordinance that seems to have been deliberately designed to invite legal action.
Once again joining SAF is the Illinois State Rifle Association, this time along with Action Target, Inc., and three individual plaintiffs including a retired Chicago police detective, according to a SAF press release. Likewise, they are once again represented by attorneys Alan Gura of Virginia and David Sigale of Chicago, who teamed up with SAF and ISRA on the recent historic case of McDonald v. City of Chicago. That was the case decided on June 28 that incorporated the Second Amendment to the states, effectively striking down Chicago’s 28-year-old handgun ban.
“While the city has adopted new regulations that make it legal to own handguns,” said SAF Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “they have crafted this new ordinance to make it virtually impossible for prospective gun owners to meet all legal requirements unless they travel outside the city for mandatory training.”
Privately, Gottlieb has suggested that the city administration under Mayor Richard Daley “needs adult supervision.” They have adopted a gun ownership scheme “in name only.” The ordinance had already drawn one lawsuit, and now there is another.
SAF has been busy since the McDonald ruling. The group has filed lawsuits in New York, Maryland and North Carolina.
Chicago acts as though it somehow won the McDonald lawsuit, considering the regulations it adopted. There is an education and training requirement to obtain a Chicago Handgun Permit. The ordinance prohibits the opening of gun ranges within city limits where residents would have to take their training, because it involves at least one hour of live fire on a range.
“This is a ‘Catch-22’ scenario,” Gottlieb said, “that seems deliberately designed to discourage Chicago residents from exercising their firearm civil rights barely two months after those rights were restored by the Supreme Court.”
While Chicago authorities seem content to annoy gun owners and essentially spit on the high court’s ruling in McDonald, the executive director of Washington CeaseFire, has some interesting perspectives on that ruling, according to the South Seattle Beacon. CeaseFire’s Jenny Quynn suggested that “sensible regulation” of firearms has to do with identifying where guns are and who has them, and for what purpose. She also offers the tired argument that gun ownership is some sort of “public health issue.”
“We want out state to be a model of regulation and not a place known for gun violence,” she said.
This may come as a shock to Ms. Quynn, but gun owners don’t happen to think the government — or CeaseFire — has any right to know where guns are kept, who has them and why. It is none of their business. As for being a public health issue, firearms are hardly carriers of disease. They are merely tools. Once again, her assertions show that gun prohibitionists believe the Second Amendment is not protective of a civil right, but is only a highly regulated privilege.
DAVE WORKMAN IS WITH GUNWEEK MAGAZINE