As a member of the NRA and someone who is generally opposed to most of the gun laws oppressing the law abiding citizen I have to reach out and say thank you to Mayor Daley and his band of 45 rubberstamp aldermen.  With them forcing a new law down the throats of Chicago residents that is clearly unconstitutional we’ll get the Supreme Court to clarify a few other issues.

First off the one gun per month portion of the law.  Several cities and states have limits on the number of firearms one can purchase in a month.  This is clearly a violation of the “shall not be infringed” part of the 2nd Amendment.

Next is the portion that states that people can have only one loaded firearm in the house and that any others must have trigger locks or be disassembled.  I think much of this was addressed with the Heller case but clearly the court needs to state that jurisdictions can’t limit the number of firearms that a person may own and cannot tell the people how many may be loaded at a given time.  This clearly infringes on the 2nd amendment rights of Chicagoans.

Next we have the provision that says you can’t have it on your porch, garage, or anywhere outside the home.  This is an interesting provision of the law and it will be interesting to see if the justices throw this out from the perspective of 2nd amendments rights or private property rights as it clearly violates both.

Another area of interest will be the portions that deal with fees and registration.  Now having registration is nothing new and many states do that already.  That said this notion that you have to pay fees to exercise your rights under the constitution shouldn’t stand.  Now on the subject of registration for those convicted of a gun related offense.  This one is somewhat sticky, if you’re talking about those convicted of armed robbery, rape, murder, or other violent felony then it would probably pass constitutional muster.  However this law doesn’t limit it to those offenses, it also includes non violent misdemeanors like carrying a concealed weapon that don’t prevent the person convicted from purchasing firearms in the future but would prevent them from keeping it loaded in their home.  While most of the concealed carry restrictions at the state and local level are violations of the 2nd amendment it will be interesting to see how the court comes down on this one.

Clearly Chicago’s new restrictions violate the 2nd amendment and some elements probably violate the 14th amendment as well.  While it will be another opportunity for the rights granted by the 2nd amendment to be more clearly defined via the court it is unfortunate that many more Chicagoans will die because their City government places a higher value on their power than the constitutional rights of its citizens.