SAF SUES CHICAGO OVER GUN RANGE PROHIBITION ON 1A, 2A GROUNDS

Oreo · Aug 25, 2010

Just in this morning:

Daley, council's childish arrogance at root of follow-up lawsuits

By Alan Gottlieb

Whatever spin Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and the city council wish to offer, it is their stubborn arrogance that has resulted in more gun rights lawsuits filed against the city following the Supreme Court's June 28 ruling in McDonald v. City of Chicago that essentially nullified the city's 28-year handgun ban.

The McDonald case - brought by the Second Amendment Foundation and Illinois State Rifle Association with four Chicago residents - resulted in a landmark ruling that incorporated the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms to the states via the 14th Amendment. SAF and ISRA have now been joined by Action Target, Inc., and two local residents, Rhonda Ezell and Joseph I. Brown to challenge the city's new gun ordinance, which appears to have been written to purposely provoke more lawsuits.

The city's childish stubbornness is going to cost taxpayers a small fortune. Mayor Daley and his anti-gun city council adopted what amounts to a "tantrum ordinance" that essentially spits in the high court's face. Sure, the city adopted an ordinance that - at least on paper - allows Chicago residents to own a handgun, but in reality, it is one huge "Catch 22" that was deliberately crafted to discourage residents from exercising their Second Amendment rights.

The city's handgun law requires prospective gun owners to undergo training, including at least one hour of actual time on a gun range. However, the ordinance prohibits the operation of gun stores and ranges inside city limits. Additionally, the city requires would-be Chicago gun owners to first obtain a Chicago Firearms Permit (CFP), and an application for that document requires an affidavit signed by a firearm instructor certified by the State of Illinois.

Instructors cannot teach those courses anywhere inside the city because there is no place to conduct that training.

Earlier, the Illinois Association of Firearms retailers and a north suburban gun shop operator sued the city over this ordinance. Now, SAF, ISRA and ATI have brought legal action. Action Target is a Delaware-based company that designs and builds gun ranges, including one in Chicago, in the Federal Reserve Bank building, for use by law enforcement. The company wants to build a gun range in the city for private citizens, but the city's ordinance makes that impossible.

This sort of thing may be "politics as usual" in the Windy City, but it does not pass the smell test anywhere else. It sends a signal that Chicago authorities believe they are above the Constitution and the rule of law as defined by the Supreme Court. It's the kind of attitude one sees in a schoolyard bully, suggesting that Mayor Daley and his council cronies are in desperate need of adult supervision.

Perhaps when Mayor Daley was a child, he became accustomed to taking his ball and going home when things did not go his way on the playfield. Since he evidently has never grown up, he believes this conduct is still acceptable in an adult world. The citizens of Chicago have tolerated his juvenile delinquency but that doesn't mean the rest of the country needs to.

Chicago's ridiculous gun law is proof positive that the city administration does not take the Supreme Court ruling seriously. The time has come to change that, and that will require the federal courts to spank the city again, since nothing else seems to get the city's attention.

Patrick · Aug 25, 2010

Did Alan Gottlieb of the SAF just talk about "spanking" Daley?

I imagine this will provoke a response from Daley; hopefully something admissible in court as further proof the ordinance was intentionally outside the fold of law.

pcfixer · Aug 25, 2010

Patrick said:
Did Alan Gottlieb of the SAF just talk about "spanking" Daley?

I imagine this will provoke a response from Daley; hopefully something admissible in court as further proof the ordinance was intentionally outside the fold of law.

My opinion is the "spanking" via paying court costs and tax dollars from the city's funds is not enough. Instead, maybe a verbal chastising from the courts directly to Daley and his cronies who intentioally crafted the new law.
"Maybe a time out just like you do kids"... :party29:

ToneGrail · Aug 25, 2010

Mayors Daly and Fenty need to be taken into custody for contempt of court.

hvymax · Aug 25, 2010

ToneGrail said:
Mayors Daly and Fenty need to be taken into custody for contempt of court.

Them and the council members who write the crap. A few weeks in general population should straighten them right out.

Afield · Aug 25, 2010

Patrick said:
Did Alan Gottlieb of the SAF just talk about "spanking" Daley?

Sounds like Daley may need some help from the "Eighth Amendment Foundation.".

gamer_jim · Aug 25, 2010

pcfixer said:
My opinion is the "spanking" via paying court costs and tax dollars from the city's funds is not enough. Instead, maybe a verbal chastising from the courts directly to Daley and his cronies who intentioally crafted the new law.
"Maybe a time out just like you do kids"...

Ya, how'd that work out for DC? They still owe them what like $16 million or something like that and they are refusing to pay.

Patrick · Aug 25, 2010

gamer_jim said:
Ya, how'd that work out for DC? They still owe them what like $16 million or something like that and they are refusing to pay.

$3.1 Million and change, I think. Though they are still fighting. DC claims they owe maybe $850K even though they spent millions themselves. Gura pointed out his bill rate was lower than DC's outside counsel.

jjbduke2004 · Aug 25, 2010

Afield said:
Sounds like Daley may need some help from the "Eighth Amendment Foundation.".

krucam · Aug 29, 2010

The transcript from last Tuesday's proceedings (denial of the TRO) are here:
http://www.hoffmang.com/firearms/Ezell/08-24-2010-HRG-10c05135-tro-vol-2.pdf

The Judge has done some reading and stated that she couldn't use Strict scrutiny yet (regarding the TRO decision) and was using Intermediate.

OK...she then starts going after the Defendants (Chicago) and is definitely showing her hand here:

And I think that I would like to see in your filings more addressing the unique nature of this fact basis as far as the scrutiny to be applied, and I think that I would like to see more of a reason for the City's prohibition on these firing ranges.
I literally went through all my notes and all I found was there would be bullets flying en masse and people would be transporting weapons.
But that transportation of weapons doesn't make any sense, because you'd have to transport your weapon to get out of the City borders to go to the other firing ranges.
So if you're requiring everyone to take their weapons outside to the suburbs to fire them in order to get certified to possess them, that doesn't wash. And so I think that you have some thinking to do about how you're going to approach this in the future, in the very, very near future.

tdt91 · Aug 29, 2010

just signed up with the SAF for 5 years :thumbsup:

Patrick · Aug 29, 2010

I have not followed this as I wanted so never read the city's brief, but the judge references the "unique fact basis" argument they made. She questioned whether it makes sense. It looks like the city argued for intermediate scrutiny based on those unique circumstances (guns are evil and scary?)...and she is curious how that somehow rebuts the plaintiff's arguments.

That said, she suggested the city had an argument for an even lower standard. Maybe one based on training falling outside the "core" right?

In the end, no damage means no TRO and she said plaintiffs can show no immediate harm. But then notes that can all change in a matter of days. Looks like she is trying to give the city time to work on details and maybe change their minds a little.

Interesting that she pushes up the main show (injunction lawsuit) to before the law goes into effect. Chicago did not like that. She doesn't sound like she is going to kick the can down the road...she wants to rule before 8 October.

Also got rid of a discovery phase by just denying the SAF motion and making it moot. That speeds things up. Again Chicago disappointed.

My disappointment in with the scrutiny. Nobody wants to be first. Ironically that might be the hold up with Nordyke in the 9th: they were the first to incorporate and might be struggling with letting that dog loose?

krucam · Sep 14, 2010

Gura put up to more documents in support of his Motion for TRO...classic arguments. Item 26 is a must-read from the Docket:
http://ia360707.us.archive.org/1/items/gov.uscourts.ilnd.246475/gov.uscourts.ilnd.246475.docket.html

A gun range becomes unusually dangerous if one runs into the line of fire, but that is also true of vehicular traffic.

Patrick · Sep 14, 2010

OK, Gura is just having fun with this now. Sounds like something we'd write.

Counsel’s description of “arms being discharged en masse and with great frequency” does not even amount to a conjectural harm at a gun range, any more than “gasoline set ablaze en masse and with great frequency” could be used to describe internal combustion engines driven along a highway.

For everyone not interested in reading the whole 12 pages (they are good), Gura is demanding a Temporary Restraining Order (again). The last one was shot down because the judge said there was no imminent mobile range being delivered.

This time the SAF rented the mobile range (for $15K, paying a non-refundable half up front), put gas in it and has a driver ready to take it to leased land on South Bell Ave on the South side next week.

It's a fun read because he brings bibles, porn shops, abortion clinics and churches into the argument. Also, this is the kind of junk we're going to be fighting for years: zoning, "creative" restrictions and the like. You should take the time to read it.

shawn · Sep 14, 2010

Patrick said:
Also, this is the kind of junk we're going to be fighting for years: zoning, "creative" restrictions and the like.

It was a great read. Not all legalese.

Its great that we have Gura because there they are going to find more "creative" ways to deny us.

But Gura will just smack down their stupid silly little arguement every time.

but this makes no sense

simply circular reasoning

The argument fails on three critical levels

krucam · Sep 15, 2010

Apparently Gura and/or Sigale is getting more upset with Chicago's antics in Ezell (along with Benson interaction). Ezell docket is here

In their latest filing today (9/15) Gura/Sigale argue the nonsense. 12 pages in their response, Item 31 in the Docket linked above.

Nor should Plaintiffs have to endure this process. Under Illinois law, it would be the Defendant’s burden, not the Plaintiffs’, to show why their range is dangerous. “[T]he location [of a range is assumed] appropriate for such activity in the absence of further factual allegations . . . particularly describing the area as inappropriate for the target practice.” Miller v. Civil Constructors, 272 Ill. App. 3d 263, 271, 651 N.E.2d 239 (Ill. App. 1995).

Patrick · Sep 15, 2010

Wow. Sounds pissed.

This just enetered a few minutes ago: Item 34

which says all of the following:

This docket entry was made by the Clerk on Wednesday, September 15, 2010:

MINUTE entry before Honorable Virginia M. Kendall: Plaintiff's motion for TRO [25] is entered and continued for ruling on 9/16/2010 at 04:00 PM. Advised in open court notice(tsa, )

Sounds like they are meeting tomorrow afternoon for a ruling...

Oreo · Sep 16, 2010

Wow, defendants are pulling all kinds of shenanigans. Gura called them right out on it. I bet the judge sees it for what it is & gives Chicago a good firm smack-down tomorrow. My money is on the judge granting that TRO & telling the defense attorney to knock it off or else.

ezliving · Sep 16, 2010

Thrust and Parry - Gura and the Chicago Attorneys in the Ezell case

Unlike the NRA's case, Benson et al v. Chicago et al, this case has featured frontal legal assaults by the City of Chicago's Legal Department from almost Day One. These assaults have been met with fierce counter-attacks by Gura and Sigale along with some surprises of their own. To use an analogy, Benson is like the war on the Western Front during WWII while Ezell is like the war on the Eastern Front. The latter was vicious and brutal with no quarter asked nor given.

And so it is with these cases. I don't know if it is because the City of Chicago is still fuming mad that they lost the McDonald case or because they respect the legal acumen of Alan Gura and don't want to be caught short again. Nonetheless, the war started four days after the original filing in this case.

http://onlygunsandmoney.blogspot.com/2010/09/thrust-and-parry-gura-and-chicago.html

MD-Dave · Sep 16, 2010

Patrick said:
Wow. Sounds pissed.

This just enetered a few minutes ago: Item 34

which says all of the following:

Sounds like they are meeting tomorrow afternoon for a ruling...

Waiting on pins and needles for the decision!

SAF SUES CHICAGO OVER GUN RANGE PROHIBITION ON 1A, 2A GROUNDS

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