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We Win! But What Does It Mean?

By now you have heard the great news. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Second Amendment restricts what states and cities, just as the court found two years ago that this same part of the Bill of Rights restricts what the federal government, can do in regulating firearms. In McDonald v. Chicago, we have a victory, but it is far from complete. In fact, it's a mess.

Just as driving instructors often say a new license is really a "license to learn," this decision by the court is, more than anything else, a license to sue. On the one hand, the court said in this 5-4 decision (straight split of conservatives and liberals on the court) that the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals must take the case back (in effect, SCOTUS said that the Chicago gun ban law is unconstitutional). It also said (as it did in the Heller decision two years ago) that many gun control laws can remain.

Now, we get to find out which of the thousands of restrictive gun laws can stand up to legal challenges, and the only way to find out is to go to court. More on that in a minute, but first, Chicago is busy working out ways to just barely stay within the new Supreme Court edict, yet keep its boot on the necks of lawful Chicago residents who want to have a handgun for self defense. Expect the Windy City to follow the lead of Washington, D.C, which put many barriers -- and expenses -- in the way of those who want to get a permit to own a gun.

Here's an example of the way Chicago's "leaders" are thinking.

From the Chicago Tribune:

The court's ruling "did not say that a person is entitled to more than one handgun, and one handgun is sufficient for self defense," Corporation Counsel Mara Georges told aldermen at a City Council committee meeting. "We believe that a limitation on the number of handguns to one per person per residence would be consistent with the Supreme Court's decisions."

"Reducing the number of handguns in Chicago is critical to public safety," Georges said. "Handguns are overwhelmingly the cause of firearm deaths and injuries in Chicago. Handguns were used in 402 of 412 firearms homicides in Chicago in 2008. That's 98 percent of the firearms homicides."

What Ms. Georges misses, and what Mayor Daley misses, is that this disgraceful murder rate in Chicago was under their own Utopian form of gun control -- a total ban on handguns! Their law does not reduce crime. It renders everyone in the city -- residents and visitors alike -- vulnerable to criminal attack.

Well, I'm not really accurate on that last point. Not everyone is defenseless. Two groups can defend themselves. The criminals have guns. So do the burly members of Mayor Daley's personal security team.

Not content to limit residents to one handgun per individual per household (with required training, insurance, and exorbitant fees, no doubt), Ms. Georges goes on to say that the city probably will not allow anyone to open a gun store in Chicago. After all, she said, there are 45 gun stores within 13 miles of Chicago, so people in the city can go buy guns at those stores. And for the disadvantaged who live in the deepest, darkest jungle of crime-ridden Chicago, and who depend upon public transportation...well, they can simply take a bullet for the Mayor, I guess. Daley wants control, and we all have to make our sacrifices.

The city also plans to retain its ban on firearms which are ugly. They call it an "assault weapon" ban, of course.

No doubt Chicago will find itself back in court over its restrictions on our fundamental right to own guns, but for now, the team of Alan Gura and Alan Gottlieb (the former is the attorney who argued both the Heller case and the McDonald case before the Supreme Court, and the latter is the head of the Second Amendment Foundation, which brought the lawsuit in Chicago) have already filed suit in North Carolina, challenging a law which gives the state the ability to stop gun sales during a declared emergency. There's nothing in the U.S. Constitution which says that fundamental rights exists unless the government declares an emergency.

NOTE: Both Gura and Gottlieb will be guests on Tom Gresham's Gun Talk radio show this Sunday, the Fourth of July, to talk about the McDonald case as well as the road ahead. There will be many years of work to regain the civil rights we have lost at the hands of those who have restricted or completely removed our gun rights.

It's a long fight, and we must not tire. We must continue to support gun rights groups which push back with this litigation. We must increase our efforts to bring in more shooters.

I have closely watched this fight, and participated in it, for 40 years. For that entire time the courts and the U.S. government took the position that there was no individual right to own a gun.

Those days are over, and through the next couple of decades, we will win, and win and win, because now, we have the right tools. We have a license to sue.

~Tom Gresham