Sangamon County Rifle Association
Right Reason on Second Amendment Rights
Springfield, Illinois


Jim Butler



Chicago's Handgun Ban Court Case

Jim Butler, President, SCRA
July 2009 GunNews









After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Washington, D.C.'s 1976 handgun ban last year, communities around the country revoked their bans, with one of the exceptions being Chicago.

A federal appellate court recently upheld Chicago's ban, saying Second Amendment protection for gun owners apply only to federal laws, the National Rifle Association immediately appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In January of this year, an appeals court panel in New York that included Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor upheld a handgun ban on the grounds that the Second Amendment applied to federal laws.  And judges in New York and Chicago said only the Supreme Court could decide whether to extend last years ruling throughout the country.

Chicago's handgun ban is almost the twin brother of the D.C. ban which was found unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, and has proved to be profoundly embarrassing to the liberal elite.  Chicago's federal argument makes one wonder if they would apply the same reasoning to the rest of the Bill of Rights.  The purpose of every line of the Bill of Rights was to protect people from the state.  Our Founding Fathers refused to ratify a Constitution that didn't protect individual liberties, and not just on a federal level.

At the time of the adoption of the Bill of Rights, this country's statesmen were concerned with the need to protect citizens from government itself, and the passage of over two centuries has not negated the validity of this concern.

The Bill of Rights is the list of the fundamental, inalienable rights, endowed in man by his Creator, that defines what it means to be a free and independent people with the rights which must exist to ensure that government governs only with the consent of the people.

The Founders' purpose in guaranteeing the right to keep and bear arms was not merely to overthrow tyrants.  They saw the right to arms as crucial to what they believed was a prime natural right - self defense.

Chicago is basing their legal argument on the belief that the Second Amendment protection does not apply to cities and states.  Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor apparently agrees with them.  The case could possibly go before the Supreme Court as early as next fall if accepted by the court.

"The right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible."

Hubert H. Humphrey


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