The U.S. Supreme Court on June 28 overturned a longstanding Chicago ban on private handgun ownership, ruling that it runs afoul of the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms. A group of Chicago residents had challenged the city’s 1982 handgun ban, saying the restrictions left them “vulnerable to criminals,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the five-justice majority. The residents sued but were initially shot down when the federal circuit court ruled that the Supremes’ 2008 ruling in another case, which invalidated a similar ban in Washington, D.C., had not decided whether the Second Amendment protections extended to the individual states. On Monday, Alito wrote that protections on gun ownership are indeed “fully applicable to the States.” Not surprisingly, the ruling pleased Texas’ Attorney General Greg Abbott, who authored a friend-of-the-court brief in the case on behalf of 33 state attorneys general. “The decision marks a victory not only for law-abiding gun owners, but also for the constitutional rights and liberties that our Founders guaranteed to all Americans,” Abbott said in a statement.
[Note: The Supremes� decision does not end the story. The case returns to the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, which will have to decide whether the Chicago ban specifically violates the Second Amendment. The Chicago handgun ban may be dead, but �reasonable restrictions� are still allowed: Certain classes of firearms (automatic weapons, for example) may still be subject to restrictions, but the precise limits are undetermined. Look for more litigation down the road.]
This article appears in July 2 • 2010.