Sunday, June 29, 2008

This can't happen in a city that bans guns, right?

Wrong.

Here's the story: A Chicago firefighter was shot and seriously injured while responding to a fire on the Southeast Side at about 3:30 this morning. That's the link to the Sun-Times story; the Tribune, as of this writing, says only that he was shot on duty -- which could mean at the firehouse or at a fire. The Sun-Times story quotes Fire Department sources, so it's probably -- probably -- more accurate. According to the Sun-Times, the injured firefighter "works in the Office of Fire Investigations." He responded to the 2900 block of East 80th Street about 3:30 for a working fire" and was shot.

Either way... these things should be impossible in a city that bans guns inside its limits. But they're not.

There's been a lot of discussion here and elsewhere on line about the Supreme Court's decision this week in the Heller case (join the discussion on Second Effort here). There's a lot of talk about Chicago's handgun ban falling just like the District of Columbia's -- Second City Cop reported that the NRA filed suit in Federal Court in Chicago 15 minutes after the Heller opinion was handed down. (Although police generally are supposed to favor restrictive gun laws, SCC and its legion of commenters suggest otherwise. Which is why it's always useful to read widely.)

Will the City of Chicago spend a lot of hard-earned taxpayer dollars to fight the NRA's suit?

Why?

Why not spend some time and effort drafting a constitutional ordinance instead?

2 comments:

Jean-Luc Picard said...

When things are banned, they just go underground.

SQT said...

I agree with Jean-luc. Guns are too common in the U.S. for a gun ban to work. We'd just end up with an even bigger black market in guns.