Supreme Court strikes down D.C. handgun ban
Gun-rights advocates in Illinois joined others across the country in hailing Thursday's 5-4 court ruling that Americans have a constitutional right to keep guns in their homes for self-defense.
Richard Pearson, executive director of the Illinois Rifle Association, said it "puts on notice a lot of the local municipalities who pass onerous ordinances against gun ownership that sooner or later the individual citizens' rights will come to the fore."
Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley voiced a sharply contrasting assessment, calling the decision "very frightening for America" and saying it raises the specter of a return to Old West shootouts.
Soon after the court announced its ruling, the Illinois Rifle Association and Washington state-based Second Amendment Foundation filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of four city residents seeking to overturn Chicago's handgun ban.
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The Supreme Court ruling -- the justices' first major pronouncement on gun control in U.S. history -- does not immediately affect Chicago's ordinance. Rather, it strikes down only the District of Columbia's 32-year-old handgun ban as incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment. But as Thursday's suit against Chicago indicates, gun-rights advocates view the ruling as the boost they need to erase local laws resembling the District of Columbia's.
Daley, who said the ruling will impede mayors' efforts to stanch street violence, said the city will not back down. City attorneys said Chicago, unlike the District of Columbia, can defend its ordinance, in place since 1982, by virtue of its home-rule status.
Chicago Public Schools and Chicago police officials joined Daley in saying the ruling will complicate efforts to curb gun violence. City school officials say gunfire has killed 27 students since September.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich joined in, echoing Daley's denunciation and saying he will pursue new gun control measures through legislative channels.
The National Rifle Association said Thursday it expects to challenge handgun-possession bans in Chicago's suburbs, which could mean Morton Grove, Evanston, Oak Park and Wilmette.
Wilmette's ordinance drew national scrutiny in 2004, when the village fined resident Hale DeMar $750 after he shot and wounded a middle-of-the-night intruder trying to steal a flat-screen monitor. Cook County prosecutors eventually decided against charging DeMar for having an expired firearm owner's identification card.
State lawmakers, reacting to the Wilmette events, passed a measure in 2004 stipulating that someone who shoots a home intruder cannot be convicted of violating a local handgun ban. The measure became law in 2004 after legislators overrode Blagojevich's veto.
On Thursday, the governor said he supports "common sense gun laws #8230; that save lives, protect communities and offer greater safety protections for police officers." He said he planned to work to create more protections for communities.
One such community, Morton Grove, became the first in the nation back in 1981 to outlaw handgun possession. Current Mayor Richard Krier said attorneys are reading Thursday's opinion to ascertain how it may affect the village ordinance; he said Morton Grove will comply with the court ruling once that has been determined.
Krier said village police enforce the ordinance as they find handguns in the course of traffic stops or domestic violence calls; village Administrator Joe Wade said there have been only three violations in the past three years.
Krier said the ordinance has not been an ongoing point of contention in his village, even though he said residents are as divided on the matter as Americans elsewhere.
"I'm just glad the Supreme Court has finally acted because it's been one of these volatile issues I think the ruling will help alleviate because now we know where the court stands," Krier said.
Thomas Menard, executive director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, had expected the ruling but told WBBM News Radio 780 that "we're going to have more deaths and injuries."
The ruling carries potentially enormous impact because no previous court had conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment since its ratification in 1791. The amendment reads: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
The basic issue for the justices in this case was whether the amendment protects an individual's right to own guns no matter what, or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia.
Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said an individual right to bear arms is supported by "the historical narrative" both before and after the Second Amendment was adopted.
The Constitution does not permit "the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home," said Scalia, whose opinion dealt almost exclusively with self-defense in the home.
In a dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority "would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons."
He said such evidence "is nowhere to be found."
Joining Scalia were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas. Other dissenters were Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter.
The high court said nothing in its ruling should "cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons or the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings."