[IL] Chicago gun lawsuit plaintiffs apply for permits

From the anti-gun hellhole known as Chicago:

Two years after filing a lawsuit that ultimately forced the city to dismantle its 28-year-old handgun ban, Otis McDonald walked into a police station Monday and applied for a permit allowing him to keep a gun at home.

The process took only 20 minutes, but McDonald said some of the requirements to obtain the permit seemed excessive. And though a gun permit was worth any price for him, he said he is concerned that the $100 fee could deter some law-abiding citizens from buying a handgun.

The city's new gun ordinance, enacted after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the law that banned handguns, allows each eligible gun owner in a home to buy one handgun a month. Each handgun requires a $100 permit that must be renewed every three years. Gun owners also are required to register all their guns with the city, at a cost of $15 per gun every three years.

"The process itself was not bad," said McDonald, who initially plans to buy a .45-caliber handgun for his Morgan Park home. "But the unreasonable thing was the $100 many people will not be able to afford. And that's a shame because they will continue to be vulnerable to the drug dealers and gangbangers." ...

Read the rest here.

Gun License Fees and the Right to Keep and Bear Arms for Self-Defense

From Prof. Eugene Volokh, opining on the constitutionality of taxes and fees on guns and gun owners:

After McDonald, and the newly enacted Chicago handgun ordinance, people are again turning to whether and when gun license fees are unconstitutional. I’ve heard some argue that under existing constitutional rules applicable to other rights — especially the First Amendment — any fee for the exercise of a constitutional right is per se unconstitutional. But rightly or wrongly, that turns out not to be the case. Here’s an excerpt from my Implementing the Right to Keep and Bear Arms in Self-Defense article, with most of the citations omitted; see PDF pp. 100–102 to find all the citations.

Taxes on guns and ammunition ... would be substantial burdens [which I argue should be unconstitutional –EV] if they materially raised the cost of armed self-defense. A $600 tax proposed by Cook, Ludwig & Samaha, justified by an assertion that “keeping a handgun in the home is associated with at least $600 per year in externalities,” is one such example. “The poorly financed [self-defense] of little people,” like their “poorly financed causes,” deserves constitutional protection as much as the self-defense of those who can afford technologically sophisticated new devices or high new taxes. (See Martin v. City of Struthers, 319 U.S. 141, 146 (1943) (striking down ban on door-to-door solicitation, partly on the grounds that “[d]oor to door distribution of circulars is essential to the poorly financed causes of little people”); see also City of Ladue v. Gilleo, 512 U.S. 43, 56 (1994) (striking down ban on display of signs at one’s home, partly on the grounds that “[r]esidential signs are an unusually cheap and convenient form of communication. Especially for persons of modest means or limited mobility, a yard or window sign may have no practical substitute.”).) This is true whether the tax ... is imposed on gun owners directly, or on gun sellers or manufacturers, just as a restriction on abortion can be a substantial burden even if it’s imposed on doctors and not on the women who are getting the abortions. ...

Read the rest here.

Chicago mayor vows new gun controls after Supreme Court ruling

From NBC Chicago:

As expected, Mayor Daley and Chicago's City Council are circling the wagons to defend against an unfavorable decision by the Supreme Court concerning the city's gun ban.

Daley said the city would have in place a new ordinance aimed at making it difficult to purchase and own a gun in Chicago. [emphasis added]

"We'll publicly propose a new ordinance very soon," Daley said at an afternoon press conference concerning the gun ban.



"As a city we must continue to stand up ..and fight for a ban on assault weapons .. as well as a crackdown on gun shops," Daley said. "We are a country of laws not a nation of guns."

The Supreme Court did not overturn Chicago's gun ban outright, but sent the case challenging it, McDonald vs. the City of Chicago, back to the lower courts for a final decision.

Once that comes, the city should have new ordinances in place to limit gun ownership.

Read it here.

Supreme Court rules that Second Amendment applies to state and local governments

Today, the Supreme Court issues its long-awaited decision in McDonald v. Chicago, the Chicago gun ban case, ruling that the Second Amendment applies not only to the federal government, but to state and local governments as well.

Read the Court's ruling here.

Justice Alito wrote the majority decision, joined by Chief Justice Roberts, and Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy. Justices Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor dissented.

As expected, the Court incorporated the Second Amendment using the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process clause, rather than the Privileges and Immunities clause advocated by plaintiffs' attorney Alan Gura (the plaintiffs were the petitioners at the Supreme Court, having lost in the lower courts).

Some good news to start the week.