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Ban on handgun sales in Chicago ruled unconstitutional

gunCHICAGO – A federal judge has declared Chicago’s ban on handgun sales and transfers unconstitutional.

Chicago has had the ban in place since 2010 as murders due to gun violence number in the hundreds each year, with thousands more injured and maimed.

According to the ruling by Judge Edmond E. Chang:

Three Chicago residents and an association of Illinois firearms dealers brought suit against the City of Chicago (Mayor Rahm Emanuel is sued in his official capacity, which is the same as suing the City), challenging the constitutionality of City ordinances that ban virtually all sales and transfers of firearms inside the City’s limits The ban covers federally licensed firearms dealers; even validly licensed dealers cannot sell firearms in Chicago. The ban covers gifts amongst family members; only through inheritance can someone transfer a firearm to a family member. Chicago does all this in the name of reducing gun violence. That is one of the fundamental duties of government: to protect its citizens. 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. This right must also include the right to acquire a firearm, although that acquisition right is far from absolute: there are many long-standing restrictions on who may acquire firearms (for examples, felons and the mentally ill have long been banned) and there are many restrictions on the sales of arms (for example, licensing requirements for commercial sales). But Chicago’s ordinance goes too far in outright banning legal buyers and legal dealers from engaging in lawful acquisitions and lawful sales of firearms, and at the same time the evidence does not support that the complete ban sufficiently furthers the purposes that the ordinance tries to serve. For the specific reasons explained later in this opinion, the ordinances are declared unconstitutional.

The ruling was temporarily delayed to allow the city time to decide if it will appeal.

Judge Chang was appointed by President Obama, a strong supported of gun laws, who himself has put in place over 20 executive actions in an attempt to curb gun violence.  

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