Mayor Daley backs off plan to limit residents to one gun

The headline makes it sound like good news, but check out some more details in the Sun-Times:

It prohibits possession of those handguns outside the home. The home is specifically defined as the inside portion “traditionally used for living purposes” — not the garage, yard, porch, deck or walkway.

No more than one firearm in the home could be “assembled and operable.” The rest must be secured by a trigger lock or locked box or “broken down in a non-functioning state.”

Additionally, a $100 firearms permit good for three years would be required for each gun owner and an application fee of $15 plus an annual “reporting fee” of $10 for each gun. Mandatory classroom training and range time (cost unspecified) would be required to get the firearms permit.

Here’s an interesting bit: people over 18 but under 21 would require parental permission to obtain a gun. They want to tell 20-year-olds to go get a note from their mommy.

No gun shops allowed. Period. Buy your guns elsewhere. (Though I’ve got to think that ten thousand prospective gun shop owners are licking their chops about the possibility of setting up a store just outside the city.)

Finally, the city would maintain a list of “permissible” guns that residents could own. No word on what would be on the list.

Chicago Corporation Counsel Mara Georges, who a couple of days ago said that previously proposed restrictions, including one handgun per person, were reasonable and would stand up in court says, well, that these new proposed restrictions are reasonable and would stand up in court.

She also makes the driver’s license comparison. I keep seeing that one. I really don’t think those people making that argument have thought things through.

Via Say Uncle and Newsalert:

Chicago Moves Quickly To Draft New Gun Ordinance

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley will push for a strict handgun ordinance to replace its doomed gun ban that will likely include limiting each resident to a single handgun, requiring gun owners to have insurance and prohibiting gun stores from setting up shop in the city, his top lawyer said Tuesday.

This is all part of the way things are done. Rulings are handed down, the losing side tries to make new rules that comply to the letter of the new but the spirit of the old. If it’s not good enough, the new rules get challenged and, if warranted, overturned. And establish precedent along the way.

Chicago Corporation Counsel Mara Georges weighed in:

She said that limiting Chicago residents to one handgun would pass constitutional muster. Nowhere has the court determined that “a person is entitled to more than one handgun,” she said. “And one handgun is sufficient for self defense.”

She said banning gun shops in the city is another reasonable restriction. She said studies have shown a disproportionate number of shootings near gun shops and because there are dozens of gun shops in the Chicago area — 40 in Cook County alone — a ban would not inconvenience gun buyers.

Regardless of what anyone thinks about Georges’ logic, let’s just look at her previous statements about the 2nd Amendment, gun laws, and how they’ll hold up in court:

City Corporation Counsel Mara Georges has told two City Council committees she’s confident Chicago’s law will stand.

Georges tells Aldermen the Supreme Court’s decision on Washington, D.C.’s handgun ban shouldn’t apply to Chicago, because previous Supreme Court rulings have said Second Amendment “right to bear arms” doesn’t apply to local governments, like Cities. She says D.C. is a federal jurisdiction.

Hmmm. She didn’t quite get that one right.

Anyway, it’s probably easier for everyone if she convinces Daley to just keep trying to restrict things unreasonably. That way the challengers don’t have to travel all over the country to get stuff struck down.

On the road right now, but here are a few thoughts about the decision.

Like Heller, this is a game-changing landmark. But we didn’t get where we are in a couple of years, and it’s going to take more than a couple of years to get back closer to where we should be.

However, sooner or later people are going to have to give up on the whole “the 2nd Amendment means guns for an organized government militia” thing. We’ve been telling them for years and years that it doesn’t mean that. The Supreme Court keeps judging that it doesn’t mean that. At some point critics are going to have to accept that it doesn’t mean that.

UPDATE: Here’s something else by Reynolds. It includes:

the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment decisions have made a major difference. In particular, they have offset the gun-control community’s longstanding effort to “denormalize” firearms ownership — to portray it as something threatening, deviant, and vaguely perverse, and hence demanding strict regulation, if not outright prohibition. That effort went on for decades, and received much media support. Two decades ago, it seemed to be working.

But with the Supreme Court saying that it’s clear the Framers regarded individual gun ownership as “necessary to our system of ordered liberty,” that effort must be seen as a failure now. Gun ownership by law-abiding citizens is the new normal, and the Second Amendment is now normal constitutional law.

I was asked last night what I thought this decision would mean by the person who told me that it had been handed down. I responded that since I hadn’t read any details about it, I could only say that I thought it was good and though I doubted gun laws in many places would change overnight, this decision would change the playing field and form a new foundation that future cases (and laws) would be built upon. The key is to maintain the momentum and not lose focus just because it looks like things are going well.

Why Chicagoans Need Guns by John Stossel:

Two years ago, the Heller case in DC was billed as the “landmark gun-control case.” But the Supreme Court is expected rule on a bigger case next week: McDonald vs Chicago. Heller only applied to Washington DC, but if the Supremes rule for Chicago gun owners next week, that could change laws nationwide.

Gregory Kane:

Is there anyone doing more damage against advocates of gun control than Daley? The man is a walking billboard for right-to-carry laws.

Yah. I’m crying my eyes out.

Someone give Daley another microphone.

Daley won’t say if 80-year-old will be charged under gun ban – Chicago Breaking News

Mayor Richard Daley refused to say today whether an 80-year-old Army veteran who shot and killed an intruder will be charged under the city’s handgun ban.

Asked about the possibility of charges, the mayor ended a news conference he had called about summer curfew in the city.

“I don’t know. Thank you very much,” Daley said and stepped away from the microphone.

Before walking away, Daley acknowledged people's frustration over the issue of gun control but insisted “I don’t think the answer is guns.”

A parolee with a record of drug and gun arrests broke in an reportedly fired two shots before the homeowner dispatched him.

The man has been hailed as a hero by his family and neighbors, but Daley cautioned that “guns is not the answer to the problems that we see in a home, in the streets of America. It’s as simple as that.”

Actually, Mayor Daley, I think that this story illustrates that you are just plain wrong. As simple as that.

Chicago Mayor Daley offers to shoot reporter to prove gun ban works

At a news conference to discuss Chicago’s gun ban and the Supreme Court’s pending ruling on the issue, a reporter from the Chicago Reader asked him if the ban was effective.

“Since guns are readily available in Chicago even with a ban in place, do you really think it’s been effective?” asked Mick Dumke.

“Oh!” Daley said. “It’s been very effective!”

He grabbed a rifle, held it up, and looked right at me. He was chuckling but there was no smile.

“If I put this up your—ha!—your butt—ha ha!—you’ll find out how effective this is!”

“If I put a round up your—ha ha!”

Besides being basically a retarded thing to do, I don’t even understand what the idiot’s point was. How would shooting the reporter prove anything?

Lawmakers: Military could quell Chicago violence

CHICAGO — Two Illinois lawmakers say violence has become so rampant in Chicago that the National Guard must be called in to help.

Chicago Democratic Reps. John Fritchey and LaShawn Ford made a public plea to Gov. Pat Quinn on Sunday to deploy troops.

[BEGIN SARCASM]

I don’t understand why they just don’t ban guns. Every other city that has banned guns has seen seen dramatic drops in violent crimes. Chicago’s insane rules allowing citizens to carry firearms is to blame for all of these gun deaths.

[END SARCASM]

You’ve got to be pretty dense in the head to think calling for the National Guard is the thing to do here.

Arguing that More Guns = More Crime using crimes in Gun-Free areas as evidence.

Via Uncle.

Says Uncle:

In Chicago, if Pfleger or Daley assemble two people touting gun control, the Chicago Tribune makes a mess in its pants from all the glee. But thousands of pro-gun folks descend on the capital and it gets nary a mention