Posted on 03/11/2010 7:22:19 PM PST by marktwain
Chicago’s gun ban ordinance was enacted in 1982 to stem increasing use of firearms in crimes in the city. From the beginning, the ordinance has been an utter failure in accomplishing that goal.
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments March 2 in a case brought by Chicago residents who want guns for self-defense but are barred by the ordinance from possessing them. Judging by the justices’ questioning, a majority appeared to be leaning toward ruling the gun ban — and Oak Park’s similar ordinance — unconstitutional. That is the right thing to do.
The argument turned on constitutional niceties. The Bill of Rights, including the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, originally applied only to the national government. As time went on, various amendments were “incorporated” so they applied to the states as well — the First Amendment right to free speech, for example. The issue before the court is whether the Second Amendment should apply to the states and its municipal subdivisions. A ruling is expected in June.
The home of the lead plaintiff in the case, Otis McDonald, 76, has been burglarized several times, and his life has been threatened. He wants to own a handgun for self-defense.
He needs one. The number of murders committed with guns has soared in Chicago since the ordinance was enacted, as has the share of all murders committed with guns. In 1983, the first year the Chicago ordinance was in effect, 290 murders (39.78 percent of the total) were committed with handguns. That rose to 513 murders (60.21 percent) committed with handguns in 1990. In 2003, 442 murders (73.54 percent) were committed with handguns, and in 2008, 402 handgun murders were committed (78.67 percent).
In the 25 years since Chicago’s handgun ban was enacted, the number of murders committed with handguns dropped below 1983 levels in only four years (1984-87). All of these data are from the Chicago Police Department.
McDonald says teenagers are common perpetrators of crime in his neighborhood, and he fears them. His fear is real. In 1983, just over 16 percent of the murders in the city were committed by individuals under 21 armed with guns, according to CPD statistics. By 1990 that percentage rose to 24.5 percent.
In 1995 the share of murders committed by people aged 14 to 25 with any weapon rose to 72.4 percent, an all-time high. (Youth gun murders were not reported separately in police department analyses after 1990.) In 2008 the percentage of murders committed by individuals in that age group was 56.3 percent, according to police department data.
In addition, police have no legal duty to protect individual citizens. As one Illinois court put it, such a duty “would put the police in the position of guaranteeing the personal safety of every member of the community.”
Even if there were such a duty, police can’t protect everyone. In the past decade, the number of sworn and exempt personnel in the police department decreased slightly, from 13,484 in 1998 to 13,354 in 2008, the department reports. In that same decade the number of 911 calls increased from 3.8 million to 4.7 million. Thus police necessarily tend to respond to crimes after they have occurred.
Ultimately, then, Chicagoans have to rely greatly on self-defense. The right to bear arms for self-defense has been recognized in England and here since the mid-1700s. We can hope this century, and this U.S. Supreme Court case, will bring its revival in Chicago.
Maureen Martin (mmartin@heartland.org), an attorney, is senior fellow for legal affairs at The Heartland Institute, a nonprofit organization, based in Chicago, that promotes free-market solutions to social and political problems. She wrote Heartland’s amicus brief in the McDonald case.
Chicago is up to the armpits in barbarians. You don’t regulate barbarians, you eliminate them!
Good Article but England had no place in it. England banned handguns in 1997 and it’s doubtful that many homes have rifle as their crime rate, as in Chicago, has sky-rocketed.
Minor problem with the gun law... crooks don’t obey it.
Gungrabbers either can’t wrap their pea brains around that or they can wrap their pea brains around that but don’t care because their only objective is to take guns.
Ain't that the truth. Liberals prefer unarmed subjects.
We should always take the view that ANY form of gun restrictions on law abiding citizens has its genesis in pure, absolute EVIL. Being anti-gun IS being anti-US.
Besides, if the liberals really thought guns should be banned for the sake of civility, then they would give up their own guns to that end. Until I see people like Daley or 0bama willingly give up the armed people who protect them, then there is no reason to think that any of their gun control ideas have any genesis in GOOD.
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