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Federal Judge Rules Chicago's Ban On Licensed Gun Dealers Unconstitutional

wooferhound writes with news that a federal judge has overturned part of Chicago's firearm laws. From CNN: "A federal judge ruled Monday that Chicago's ban on virtually all sales and transfers of firearms is unconstitutional. 'The stark reality facing the City each year is thousands of shooting victims and hundreds of murders committed with a gun. But on the other side of this case is another feature of government: certain fundamental rights are protected by the Constitution, put outside government's reach, including the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense under the Second Amendment,' wrote U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang." The Chicago Tribune notes: "The ruling also would make it legal for individuals to transfer ownership of a firearm as a gift or through a private sale as long as the recipient was at least 18 and had a firearm owner's identification card." The ruling doesn't change anything yet: the ruling's effect was delayed to give the city time to appeal.

45 of 934 comments (clear)

  1. FTFA by colin_faber · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Chicago's ordinance goes too far in outright banning legal buyers and legal dealers from engaging in lawful acquisitions and lawful sales of firearms,"

  2. Re:Took them long enough... by DaHat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So you think the only way someone can kill you is with a gun? Must be pretty nice to live in your kind of sheltered world.

  3. Re:News for nerds?? by Noishkel · · Score: 5, Funny

    Gun nuts are just a different kind of nerd.

  4. Re:Age and the constitution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    US law that 18 years of life makes you an adult

    Not US law but custom. States can stipulate arbitrary age of majority such as Nebraska where it's 19.

  5. Its counter productive by Karmashock · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Another study just came out showing that increased gun ownership actually lowers the murder rate and lower gun ownership does the opposite. We have multiple points of confirmation and there are a few skeptical politicians that are starting to come around.

    The old truism is confirmed. Outlaw guns and only the outlaws will have them.

    Does Chicago have a violence problem? Yes. Gun bans are not the solution.

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    1. Re:Its counter productive by Karmashock · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Here is one of them:

      http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504851.2013.854294#.Urh7a_ZRYvR

      If you'd like me to link you to summaries or commentary then I can do that though appreciate those will be from blogs and so forth. If you want to read the actual study you'll have to get it from those fellows.

      If you want to save yourself some time, here is a quote:

      ""It was also found that assault weapons bans did not significantly affect murder rates at the state level.""

      So there you go. Why are we fighting about this issue?

      The gun people want to keep their guns. Why are the anti gun people fighting them? They say it is to save lives. But that might be a mistake on their part.

      For the sake argument, assuming these laws don't reduce murder, do we still want to ban guns?

      It just seems so needlessly confrontational. Leave people alone. If they want to carry guns let them do so. Does that mean every so often a crazy person will kill some people with such a weapon? Possibly but they're crazy and honestly could probably find something to do their deed. Remember, the 9/11 hijackers killed over 3000 people with a collection of box cutters.

      If you have a will to kill then you really don't need a gun. And I'll be honest... I like the idea of NORMAL non-criminal people that aren't crazy having access to guns. I think that's a good thing. I think society is most secure when the most reasonable people have the trump card on violence.

      My neighbors are mostly good people. If things get crazy the idea of us all popping up with a gun seems like a good check against anarchy.

      Also... zombies can't use guns... so take that zombie uprising. The robot uprising might be more of a problem. After all those bastards can use guns.

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    2. Re:Its counter productive by mapsjanhere · · Score: 4, Informative

      This is the currently popular one, as it is from Harvard (typically not a pro-gun source) http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

      --
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  6. Wrong target by jklovanc · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Laws like this target gun owners who follow the law. The problem is that most of the violence is perpetrated by people who could not buy a gun legally anyway. There are some cases of legally owned guns being used illegally but that is not the norm. This law will do nothing to curb the illegal gun trade.

    Local laws like this have little or no effect except moving the legal gun dealers and the jobs out of the jurisdiction. All gun buyers who would normally do business in Chicago will do is drive outside the city and buy their guns. The result will be the same.

    Banning the sale of a legal product that is protected by the constitution will be almost impossible. When a higher court refuses to hear the case the politicians can say "At least we tried". This is a PR stunt as they just want to look like they are doing something even when they know it will not work. What a waste of time and money that could be better used elsewhere.

    1. Re:Wrong target by DaveAtFraud · · Score: 4, Informative

      ...

      Banning the sale of a legal product that is protected by the constitution will be almost impossible. When a higher court refuses to hear the case the politicians can say "At least we tried". This is a PR stunt as they just want to look like they are doing something even when they know it will not work. What a waste of time and money that could be better used elsewhere.

      Tell me about it. I live in Colorado where the politicians pandered to a vocal constituency and passed a bunch of unenforceable laws in response to the Aurora theater shootings. In spite of these laws and laws already on the books a paroled felon was able to acquire a gun and use it to kill two people. The only difference the new laws made was to make it more difficult for law abiding citizens to buy or sell guns. And, as you predicted, all we heard from the politicians was, "At least we tried". Sadly, this will probably be followed by calls for even more controls that also won't work.

      Cheers,
      Dave

      --
      They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
      Ben
  7. Re:News for nerds?? by Megane · · Score: 5, Funny

    Because it's about GNU control.

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  8. Re:"News for nerds??" by HornWumpus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The definition 'well regulated militia' is irrelevant. The right is of 'the people'. If they wanted the right to be of 'the militia' they would have written that. Clearly they knew the word, having just used it.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  9. So if this ban on the gun ban holds... by MiniMike · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If this ruling is upheld, and the law is permanently ruled unconstitutional, what happens to the people previously convicted under this law? IANAL, obviously.

  10. Re:News for nerds?? by Arker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Actually, when politicians attempt to regulate technology they do not understand, that's news for nerds. Whether it's firearms or encryption or pen-test software or whatever.

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  11. Re:Took them long enough... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It boggles my mind why people still think gun control will "fix" crime. Crime is a socioeconomic problem. Why is there so much crime? It's not because there are guns. It's because of the way our society, economy and culture are setup. Nothing will change until you address the root underlying causes of crime, and offer people alternatives/programs that they are willing to accept.

  12. Nerds like guns? by CannonballHead · · Score: 5, Informative

    Some nerds like guns. Some nerds REALLY like guns. In fact, some nerds are defined by the fact that they play a ton of games that revolve around, pretty much, guns... So, guns themselves aren't "anti-nerd."

  13. Re:Gun control by OhPlz · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not only that, but most of the mass killings lately have been in "gun free zones". Clearly the gun free zones do not protect life or liberty.

  14. Evidence that gun laws don't work in America by troll+-1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    America is not like Europe. If strict gun laws worked then you'd expect Chicago's gun crime to be low instead of among the highest in the nation. All the criminals in Chicago have guns, irrespective of what the law says. The only people affected by these laws are law abiding citizens who may want to protect themselves. Banning guns would make us all safer if you could ban them from everyone, everywhere.

    1. Re:Evidence that gun laws don't work in America by Arker · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Europe isnt like Europe either.

      Gun laws vary quite a bit in Europe, and they also have a tradition of applying common sense and simply ignoring technical infractions where no one is hurt (again, this varies widely, but is correct in many areas.)

      Gun laws do not make Europe safer, cultures which do not approve of violence make Europe safer. The US was once just as safe (and that was back before 'gun control' was an issue, when children routinely carried their rifle with them to school.) What has changed has nothing to do with weapons, it has to do with our attitudes towards violence.

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    2. Re:Evidence that gun laws don't work in America by Darth+Twon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      America is not like Europe because they don't want to be like Europe.

      Need I remind you that USA revolted from a European country in 1775?

      --
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  15. Re:Took them long enough... by fredprado · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Crime has a socioeconomic component but it is not solely a socioeconomic factor. Guns help people to exert the right to defend themselves from crime.

    The government cannot, even if it was an efficient machine protect you with any reliability, it is immoral to take from you the right to try and do it yourself.

  16. Re:Took them long enough... by Macgruder · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://images.sodahead.com/polls/003486041/3232273818_16617_10151205510904296_1916430268_n_answer_2_xlarge.jpeg

    Nuff said...

    Funny picture. But wrong.

    "10 U.S. Code 311 - Militia: composition and classes
        (a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
    (b) The classes of the militia are—
    (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
    (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.

    --
    I'm not crazy,I'm actively irresponsible.
  17. Assault weapon bans are just propaganda by sjbe · · Score: 5, Informative

    How many crimes were perpetrated with fully automatic machine guns?

    Very few. The actual number is pretty close to none.

    How many school killings were committed with one?

    Also an incredibly small number.

    How many people in the USA died at the wrong end of a fully automatic assault rifle?

    So few that it is statistically insignificant. The exact number is less than 100

    I'll tell you why there are so few deaths from fully automatic assault rifles: gun control works.

    Really? There are about 100 million rifles in the US with AR15 "assault rifles" accounting for around 5 million of these. In 2012 rifles of any sort were used to kill 348 people. That means the percentage of rifles used in a murder is 0.000384%. More people were killed from hands and feet then were killed by rifles of any sort last year. And you are going to tell me that an assault weapon ban is anything but propaganda?

    If you want to talk about gun control, handguns account for virtually all murders with a firearm. Worrying about any other type of firearm is simply a waste of time.

  18. Re:hold it by SydShamino · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That's akin to saying that the constitution allows for free speech, but not for the pre-requisite air.

    The thing is, it doesn't, at least not in the opinions of many people. All those folks who like to blather on about negative rights rarely bring up the fact that, without strong and well-enforced environmental regulation, the air we breath, the water we drink, the food we eat, and the land upon which we live can be contaminated to the point that it will not sustain healthy life, and all of that is okay because air, water, food, shelter, and health don't fall into the category of negative rights, but are instead positive rights that restrict (often unfairly, in these people's minds) the rights of others.

    In other words, I'm talking about the type of people who like to talk about natural rights like freedom of speech, worship, ownership, but hate the idea of government restrictions on what they do with their land, their air, or their water, even those these are all commons that are shared with the community at large.

    A person who both supports natural and negative rights but sees strong environmental protections as important to protect those rights is a rare person, indeed.

    --
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  19. Re:Took them long enough... by mjr167 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Gas? Bow and arrow? Slingshot? Bomb? Large boulder falling on your head? The number of ways of killing someone are limited only to your creativity.

  20. Re:Guns keep you safe??? by cold+fjord · · Score: 5, Informative

    How may gun-relate crimes have been stopped thanks to citizen carrying guns? It seems to me that the more guns there are, the more death there are.

    It happens all the time. Recent example:

    Dallas Store Manager Shoots at 5 Armed Robbers Police Arrive 74 Minutes Later

    Study shows concealed-carry laws result in fewer murders

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  21. Re:Took them long enough... by fwarren · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If I recall correctly stat say that the US is #3 in gun deaths in developed countries.. What is funny about that is if you take the 3 cities with the strongest anti Gun laws (Washington DC, New York City, and Chicago) and made them their own country, they would be #4 on the list and the rest of the US would drop down to something like #20 or lower on the list..

    It is not the legal gun owners in these cities murdering each other. The truth is most of these deaths are black on black murders done with illegal guns. As long as we are discouraged from saying this and do not address the real problems in these communities, stronger gun laws won't fix anything.

    --
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  22. Re:Age and the constitution by compro01 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    MADD is a laughable remnant of yesteryear puritanism. They're nothing more than the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in a different dress. Lightner herself left the group not long after it started because they just tilted straight into prohibitionism.

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  23. Guns defend rights by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Guns haven't been necessary to defend rights since the war of independence...

    Tell that to a black man in Mississippi circa 1964. There are a few that might tell you how the only thing that stood between their home and family, and a dozen angry klansmen with torches, was a 12ga shotgun and the will to use it. Guns in the hands of good people have been used to defend the right to free speech, the right to assemble, and the right to vote, throughout the 20th century.

    Racism is the foundation of gun control in America. Only someone ignorant of history would dispute that. The same thing goes for drug policy, but that's another conversation.

  24. Re:Took them long enough... by andydread · · Score: 5, Insightful

    . The truth is most of these deaths are black on black murders done with illegal guns. .

    The truth is most of the deaths are gang murders. Black gangs, Hispanic/Latino gangs, and yes White gangs/motorcylce clubs etc. Its gang activity. Whether it's Jesse James and his gangs back in the day, or Al Capone and his ilk, or the bloods and crips and latin kings today its mostly gang activity. Trying to cast this on one race of people when its obvious that this is not the case is...well.. short sighted to say the least.

    The problem is not the guns its the culture. plain and simple.

  25. Re:Took them long enough... by lgw · · Score: 5, Interesting

    No, the wild west was open carry. Open carry seems provocative. The primary point of most states' concealed carry laws is that your gun must remain concealed at all times. Flashing or suggesting you carry can cost your license, and is assault if it can be construed as a threat - which is an automatic 10 year sentence in some states.

    The best part of concealed carry is herd immunity - you can benefit from other's carrying and the deterrent effect that has. It's no coincidence that all but one mass shooting in the past few decades happened in a "gun free zone" of some sort (and the one exception was likely a political assassination with collateral damage, not a random shooting).

    --
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  26. Re:Took them long enough... by harrkev · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So why is it that the vast majority of mass shootings are in "gun free zones?"

    The New Life shooting was stopped by a person with a concealed permit: Wikpedia Link Without concealed permits, that WOULD have been a "mass shooting."

    What do criminals fear most? Encountering a person who is willing to shoot back.

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  27. Re:Took them long enough... by DaHat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I will defend your right to own guns but the concealed carry laws that all the 2nd Amendment defenders seem to favor are just a bit out there IMO. We tried that during the Dodge City and the wild west days and abandoned it sometime around 1900.

    Your understanding of the 'wild west' is clearly limited to what you see in the movies.

    Of course, most who oppose concealed carry forget that open carry is legal in many a state as well... and given the choice between someone being able to legally carry concealed vs open... which do you think most would prefer?

    Sure... many would say "at least if I can see the gun I know it's there and who to avoid"... to which I'd say "So? If you live your life in such terror of not knowing who might be carrying a weapon and who might not be... not only are your priorities off, but you really need to see help with your anxiety issues".

    Of course the broader thing is people associating a piece of metal & wood with evil... rather than understanding it is only a tool and it is the user who is the committer of such acts... and if sufficiently dedicated doesn't need a firearm.

  28. Re:Took them long enough... by fatphil · · Score: 4, Informative

    Isn't that definition from 1958?

    The authors of a document from the 1790s were not using a definition codified in 1958 when they were writing.

    --
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  29. Re:Took them long enough... by MBGMorden · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think you'll find that the murder rate (RATE - not total which was much lower) was actually lower during the "wild" west than it is today.

    The reality is that the the "wild" west is mostly an invention of the mid-20th century movie industry that took a handful of historical events and portrayed it such that people think that it was completely normal for the town to be shot up.

    As a matter of fact specifically in Dodge City as you mention from 1870 to 1885 there were a total of 45 homicides, putting the murder rate at 1 per 100k people.
    http://www.examiner.com/article/dispelling-the-myth-of-the-wild-west

    The current murder rate as of 2010 is 4.8 per 100k for the overall country and is much higher than that in some urban areas.
    http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/10tbl01.xls

    The simple fact is that the "wild" west wasn't as wild as you'd believe.

    --
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  30. Re:Took them long enough... by ElectricTurtle · · Score: 4, Informative

    Concealed carry is now the norm in more than 80% of the United States, and in every case, every case without exception, violent crime has either decreased or remained the same after concealed carry laws went into effect. There is nothing "out there" about it.

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  31. Re:Took them long enough... by ElectricTurtle · · Score: 5, Informative

    "Most states" says the person who clearly knows very little about states' firearms laws. Open carry is legal throughout most of the US, in many (but not most) cases predicated on having a concealed carry license/permit.

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  32. Decision details by Flamerule · · Score: 5, Informative

    Really sad that the links have few details, and more than 1.5 hours later, no one's posted anything more.

    The decision text is available here. The decision is by Judge Edmond Chang, appointed in 2010 by Obama to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The case name is Illinois Association of Firearm Retailers v. City of Chicago (formerly known as Benson v. City of Chicago).

    This link says that the lawsuit challenges five aspects of Chicago's law:

    1. the ban on any form of carriage
    2. the ban on gun stores
    3. the ban on firing ranges
    4. the ban on self-defense in garages, porches, and yards
    5. the ban on keeping more than one gun in an operable state
  33. Re:guns up/crime down in Chicago by fredprado · · Score: 4, Informative

    Indeed. There is no evidence that shows any relation between the number of legal guns and violence, mostly because legal guns are used only very rarely for illegal purposes.

  34. Re:Took them long enough... by Feyshtey · · Score: 4, Insightful

    By that line of reasoning, if you take all a person's possessions you remove any incentive a criminal would have to steal it. Which obviously proves that taking everyone's possessions is the only sane way to eliminate theft.

    --
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  35. Re:Took them long enough... by msauve · · Score: 4, Informative
    It doesn't mention marriage anywhere, which means the 10th A applies:

    The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

    --
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  36. Re:some facts by DaveAtFraud · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Recently Iceland recorded it's *FIRST* police shooting resulting in death, ever. An Icelander could say the same thing about Canada (or most other countries). And, in case you're interested, the rate of gun ownership in Iceland is HIGHER than in the U.S. Link to BBC if you don't believe me:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25201471

    Hint: guns and gun ownership aren't the problem.

    Cheers,
    Dave

    --
    They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
    Ben
  37. Re:Took them long enough... by ElectricTurtle · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is why it's important to restore the Constitution as much as possible and enable "Constitutional carry" as Vermont has always had and Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas and Wyoming have resumed. If you're not a criminal, you can carry whatever/however you want, no permission slip required.

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  38. Re:Took them long enough... by Mashiki · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The people most opposed to gun control are the ones who are also most opposed to fixing the underlying problems, so what are we supposed to do?

    Yeah hardly. You know that old adage, "you can lead a horse to water but you can't force them to swim." Right, it's the same thing with fixing those "underlying social problems." Especially in the highest crime areas where it's black youth, and the lack of a strong father figure which gives young boys no direction in life. The ones that climb above that are a small minority. Of course to fix the problem, you need to get the entire community itself to grow the fsk up.

    And of course before someone thinks that I'm a blind racist or something, we see the same problem in Canada with natives. And funny enough, it's the same damned problem, with the same underlying social issues, contributing to the same circle. Funny that. This isn't rocket surgery, not by a long shot. And race baiters, and race enablers are the primary cause of this. Followed by the belief that "they're owed something."

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  39. The Wild West by Prien715 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Actually the so-called "wild west" was not open carry.

    Upon entering town, you surrendered your weapons to the sherriff who would hold the weapon until you left town. If you didn't surrender your weapon, the sherriff would -- and did -- take it from your cold dead hands. The most famous incident was the Shootout at the OK Corral.

    Back then, it was considered "common sense" to not carry a gun around in civilization.

    --
    -- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
  40. Well regulated by fyngyrz · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well regulated, in the parlance of the times, meant that they would show up with x amount of shot, powder, a weapon to use same, change of socks, etc. It was used the same way "regulator" is used as a clock trademark. It didn't mean bossed around; it meant consistently supplied and prepared. This is explicitly laid out in legislation from the time. The point of the 2nd being made was that people required the freedom to keep an bear arms if they were to form up in a well prepared and supplied manner.

    We're still pretty well regulated in that sense. A very large number of US citizens could show up with a rifle and cartridges for same if called upon to do so. Be quite a few handguns, too, and a wide assortment of other weapons that aren't classed as firearms at all. But that's the 2nd for you: arms. Not just firearms, but arms.

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