Chicago Mayor Lacks Credibility in Opposing Supreme Court Ruling...and Just About Everything Else
Democratic Mayor Richard M. Daley was not mayor when the City of Chicago instituted its Gun Registration program — which effectively acted as a Gun Registration Ban. He was the Cook County States Attorney. During his time in that position he was aware of and presided over the most corrupt period of the Chicago Police Department in recent history.
It was the era of Detective John Burge who chained innocent men to radiators and tortured them to obtain confessions. It was also the era where a dozen men ended up on death row at the hands of the Chicago Police Department. All were set free by an equally corrupt Republican Governor, George Ryan. Daley knew what Burge was doing, but out of political expediency, did nothing about it.
During the mid 1990s when Daley was mayor, the homicide rate by guns climbed to nearly 1,000. So during the first 15 or so years that the gun registration ban was allowed to operate on the premise of reducing gun violence, just the opposite occurred.
Many, including Mayor Daley, now argue that with the recent Supreme Court decision on the Second Amendment, gun crime will escalate even further. That is an odd prediction considering that with the gun ban currently in place the homicide rate again is up.
Almost daily we read and hear reports of the police gunning down innocent citizens in the street, or alleged criminals who are armed despite the ban. Moreover, in all the places where gun carry laws are allowed gun violence is actually reduced. The best stories in the news are those where the citizens have gunned down a criminal and not the other way around. But Mayor Daley wants to maintain the unconstitutional gun ban. He wants to maintain the status quo.
Corruption trial after corruption trial during Richard M. Daley’s reign as mayor demonstrates one of two things:
- Richie Daley always has been oblivious and obtuse. Somehow Mr. Daley never knows about the pervasive corruption that exists within his city government.
- He is one of the most corrupt mayors the city has had – take a look at the many writings of Chicago Tribune Columnist John Kass on the Daley administration's corruption– and only time will tell whether he suffers the same fate as other corrupt politicians and civil servants that have fallen before him.
One thing is for certain, he and his lawyers have no idea of the legal import of the Second Amendment to the Constitution or of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Heller. Yesterday Mayor Daley rhetorically and sarcastically asked audiences whether the Supreme Court thought that giving U.S. citizens the right to keep and bear arms (handguns) in their own homes was a serious decision.
Daley can flap his gums and shoot off his mouth all he wants. That is what we have come to expect of him. He is a stone-cold hypocrite with zero credibility on this issue or any other.
We live by the rule of law and the law says, and is clearly affirmed by the Heller decision, that for the stated purpose of protecting our persons, our families and our property we have this right to bear arms.
It also is clear that we as Illinois citizens will soon have the right to step out of our homes and on to the street with openly carried handguns and there is nothing, despite his rhetoric, Daley can do about it.
What about firearms on public property? San Francisco has a ban on firearms on public property. This ban is being challenged since the Supreme
Court ruling. I'm hoping that the people opposing the ban are required to spend one month in the "projects". If they're alive at the end of the month they can go ahead with their challenge. If not, well then it should explain why we have that ban.
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Ms. Forrester, Regulations governing the presence of firearms in public buildings such as schools and courthouses are constitutional and reasonable regulations. As I am often in the courthouse and have dealt directly with threatening behavior both in and outside of the courtroom I am acutely aware of the importance of no weapons being allowed in these locations. My position is that law abiding citizens should have this right within and without the home. Any kind of open carry would be governed by the same 40 hour firearms training course that officers undergo. JPM
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Your point is well-noted, Laura, but I think it raises another issue. Whether or not there is a ban in place, sadly, the projects are unsafe. That is why so many cities have taken them down, including McCaffery Village outside of Philadephia named for my grandfather-in-law, a WWII hero.
And while all people living in the projects most certainly are not criminals, gang violence is prevalent in those that remain and with a handgun ban in place the innocent people in the projects -- and all over -- cannot defend themselves against those carrying and using illegal handguns for criminal pursuits. I'm not familiar with the SF ban, but in Chicago it comes down to this: It is illegal to have an unregistered handgun and it also is illegal to register a handgun - a twisted way to say you can't legally own a handgun in the city.
The last capital case that Joe, our Law Blog host, handled involved a young man living in a gang-ridden neighborhood who was pursued by an armed offender into his own basement where he retrieved his unregistered handgun and fatally shot the armed offender in self defense. The police didn't even bother to check the basement for signs of shots fired by the offender and the state's attorney charged this young man with first-degree murder. Fortunately Joe brought in a newspaper photographer to accompany him in his own investigation of the scene and found the evidence of the shots fired by the offender that the police didn't even look for. The law enforcement attitude in Chicago, sadly, seems to be that "those people" don't matter unless it's an election year. The jury acquitted Joe's client on the grounds of self defense. My point, Laura, is until we can get the guns out of the hands of the gang-bangers and other criminals, we need to allow citizens to legally arm and defend themselves.
This isn't strictly a projects issue either. Some 25 or so years ago my late mother was a victim of home invasion, living in an apartment in Chicago's relatively low-crime 16th Police District. She was left bound and gagged but, thankfully, otherwise unharmed. If she could have had a gun, she probably would have been too frighted to get it and use it. However if my father was home, who knows whether the criminals would have tried to harm him since he would have been a greater obstacle to their theft of valuables. My father grew up hunting and served in the Korean War, and knows how to properly handle a handgun. However, living in Chicago he could not have one. This is the issue for all Chicagoans. They are sitting ducks for criminals because as the ordinance currently stands, they cannot arm themselves for self defense. Criminals might think twice before invading a home knowing the homeowner may be legally armed.
And then there's another inner-city reality, regardless of the neighborhood, which probably addresses your point about public property: parking two or three blocks away because of the lack of available parking and walking to your home, particularly after dark. When we lived in Chicago I'd walk past people in gang-ways smoking crack. It was creepy and I felt quite defenseless. My only recourse was to call the police who, unless I was able to directly reach my old high school pal who was a TAC officer in my district, usually arrived long after I had stressfully made my way home.
These are just a few reasons why I support the Supreme Court ruling and hope to, should I choose to do so, someday carry a handgun legally, following demonstration and certification of my training.
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Gun violence is largely centered around gang activity and the drug trade, which is disproportionately represented at public housing projects. The handgun bans in major cities provide a tool to law enforcement, because those found with unregistered firearms can be charged with lesser offenses, presumably before gun violence occurs. I disagree that the gun bans are very effective, primarily because owners of otherwise legally-obtained handguns are prevented from registering those firearms, but those committing most of the crimes likely did not obtain their firearms legally, and certainly aren't going to register them.
Your comment does raise an interesting legal issue, though. I think that we can all agree that courthouses, government buildings, and other public property are places where exclusion of firearms is property and reasonable. Public housing projects, on the other hand, are both public property and private residences.
If Heller protects the right of law-abiding citizens to have handguns in the home for self-defense, then bans on firearms on public property necessarily stand in conflict with the right of ownership and possession in one's residence for those in public housing projects. Those citizens will be denied a right guaranteed to those living outside the projects.
Governments presumably would argue that the need to curtail gun violence in the projects is great enough that they need to maintain these restrictions, but that is exactly the sort of argument (expanded to the public at large) that failed in Heller.
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I very much appreciate the responses. My father, too, was a hunter and served in the Korean war. I've never been a hunter but was married to a hunter. Since we had guns in our home our children were taught gun safety and were taken out to learn how to shoot. Our oldest was sent to rifle camp and our youngest was a Marine. So please don't misunderstand. I am not someone who thinks guns are evil. I'm merely trying to raise the question of what our "living constitution" intended. I do not believe the right to bear arms for a free militia meant the government would hold onto the arms. But I also don't think the founders who wanted to guarantee our second amendment rights anticipated gang violence.
Shouldn't people who accept government aid for subsidized housing be bound by the rules just as I'm bound by the rules? My landlord says no pets. I have no pets. If you accept subsidized housing and you're told no guns shouldn't that mean no guns?
It's going to be very interesting to see what happens. I'm just hoping there is a resolution to this legal dilemma that will serve the people, not the criminals.
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Laura, this is a very interesting dilemma and you've raised my awareness of the issues in San Francisco. I'll be watching how it unfolds.
Sadly it seems that however issues are addressed or resolved in the legislature or the courts, there always are those who will break the law. Dan makes a good point about the current Chicago gun laws used as an opportunity to make arrests for lesser offenses before potential violence. It's just too easy to get an illegal weapon. I share your hope that a resolution will be found that will serve law-abiding citizens wherever they live.
As for pets, see Dan's post about the new laws enacted and bills under consideration in Illinois. Seems the state legislators are paying more attention to "dog gangs" than human street gangs....
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