The Salt Lake Tribune

A Provo maker of firing-range equipment has joined a lawsuit against Chicago’s new handgun restrictions, which bar gun shops and shooting ranges.

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s response to the U.S. Supreme Court nullifying a full ban on handguns was a new ordinance last month that allows handguns only inside homes, and only with training and registration. Any prospective gun owners who want to fulfill the training requirement will have to leave the city to do so.

Action Target of Provo joined several plaintiffs in calling that an unreasonable restriction in a lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court in Chicago.

“People have the right to keep and bear firearms, and the city’s ordinance makes that very difficult for the citizens of Chicago,” said Randy Graham, vice president of the company for which Provo Mayor John Curtis was a founder and remains part-owner.

“It creates a situation where some people may not be able to meet that [training] requirement,” Graham said, “and it certainly creates a hardship for others. The best way for individuals to have firearms is to be trained in the use of those firearms.”

Action Target has built and installed steel bullet traps and other equipment for police and federal agency firing ranges in Chicago, Graham said, and would be interested in helping build private ranges now that the city allows handguns. Private ranges aren’t a big part of the business, though, so he said the main motivation for suing was to make a constitutional stand.

Curtis declined to comment and said he now is a minority owner who was not consulted before the company joined the suit.

Action Target joins the Second Amendment Foundation, the Illinois State Rifle Association and three people in the lawsuit.

“By banning public gun ranges and by banning the loan and rental of firearms at such ranges, Chicago is acting under color of law to deprive citizens of their right to keep and bear arms,” Second Amendment Foundation Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb said in a written statement.

A spokeswoman for Chicago’s legal department did not respond to requests for comment about the city’s ordinance. When proposing the new rules last month, Daley said in a news release, “As long as I’m mayor, we will never give up or give in to the gun violence that continues to threaten every part of our nation, including Chicago.”

The Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence supports the new restrictions, and a campaign director at the nonprofit group said it’s not unreasonable to ask people to make a short trip for the mandatory training.

“There are several firing ranges within 15 or 20 miles of the city, in the suburbs,” said Mark Walsh, the council’s gun-violence-prevention campaign director. “I don’t really think that’s an undue burden.”

The group argues that more permissive gun laws would increase the city’s gun violence, which already has resulted in the deaths of four police officers this summer.

By thedude1234

**Statistics courtesy of ****U.S.**** Dept. of Health and Human
Services.**

The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000. Accidental deaths caused by physicians per year are 120,000. Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171.The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000.
Yes, that is 80 million. The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500. The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is 0.0000188.

Statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than

gun owners. Remember, “Guns don’t kill people, doctors do.”

Fact: NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN, BUT ALMOST EVERYONE HAS AT LEAST ONE DOCTOR.

Please alert your friends to this alarming threat. We must ban doctors before this gets completely out of hand. Out of concern for the public at large, I have withheld the statistics on lawyers for fear the shock would cause people to panic and seek medical attention.

By  Jason Mattera

Sen. Jeff Sessions told HUMAN EVENTS that Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor wasn’t forthcoming during her confirmation hearings on whether the right to keep and bear arms was settled, constitutional law.  In light of that, the Alabama Senator said that even many Democrats are uneasy about confirming Elena Kagan because she, too, was cagey and evasive when asked if the Second Amendment applied to individuals.  We’re “one vote” away from “any city and any state in America” completely “ban[ning] firearms,” he warned.

 (WLS) — Chicago’s new gun law is now in effect, meaning it is legal to own a gun in the city.

The new ordinance comes after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that forced the city to end its gun ban.

The city has acknowledged that this new ordinance goes further than any other in terms of restricting gun ownership, so much so that even before it went into effect Monday, two lawsuits were already filed against it.

One lawsuit comes from four Chicago residents who want to carry their handguns outside their home. Another comes from a gun shop owner who wants to open a store in Lincoln Park.

Earlier this month, the city council quickly passed the new ordinance after a Supreme Court ruling meant Chicago’s ban on handguns was unenforceable. City officials say they believe the new ordinance conforms to the High Court’s decision, but gun rights advocates say it goes too far.

“The city council is trying to minimize the risk that handguns will impose on the people of Chicago while respecting the rights of individuals who want a handgun in their home for self defense,” said Thomas Mannard, Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence.

In order to get permits, gun owners are required to get classroom and firing range training. The ordinance bans the sale of guns within city limits. Permit holders can only have one operable handgun in a home, and the ordinance prohibits guns on porches and yards.

Some experts say Chicago is legally pushing the envelope.

“Registration, I think, will be upheld; training requirements are likely to be upheld,” said Harold Krent of the Kent School of Law. “But there have been no settled judicial opinions about one operable gun per household, about not having a gun in an attached garage, about not having any kind of gun stores within the jurisdictions.”

Suburban gun shops were already seeing residents interested in owning a handgun.

“The phone has been ringing off the wall. We get a lot of walk-in people wanting to know,” said Don Mastriani, Illinois Gun Works, Elmwood Park.

The Chicago Police Department is still working on the details regarding training regulations and requirements, but it is expected that those will be made public Monday.

“There is just a lot of curiosity about what they have to learn, the cost and all that,” said Mastriani.

Some gun owners who take the 2nd Amendment seriously say any of type restriction is a violation of their rights, and they argue that limiting the use does not curb violence.

“The criminals are always going to get guns even if they try and take away guns from us,” said gun owner Jim Watts.

While the new gun ordinance may be controversial among gun owners, it was not with Chicago’s aldermen. The council unanimously passed the ordinance by a vote of 45-0.

While the U.S. Supreme Court said citizens have a right to keep firearms at home, the court did not establish any standards for gun restrictions. Experts expect some of these lawsuits to make their way from lower courts eventually to the Supreme Court.

By Kaili Joy Gray aka Angry Mouse  Why liberals should love the Second Amendment

Excerpts:

“Liberals love the Constitution.”

“And they will, almost without exception, conclude the necessity of respecting, and not restricting, civil liberties.”

“Except for one: the right to keep and bear arms.”

“And that, sadly, is the biggest mistake of all.”

“No. 5: The Second Amendment is about revolution.”

“In no other country, at no other time, has such a right existed. It is not the right to hunt. It is not the right to shoot at soda cans in an empty field. It is not even the right to shoot at a home invader in the middle of the night.”

“It is the right of revolution.”

“Let me say that again:  It is the right of revolution.”

Read the whole spot-on article found unbelievably at the Leftist Daily Kos

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Heads_Up SGM

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Violence Policy Center (VPC) are peddling the notion that concealed-handgun permit holders are a danger to society. Last month, the center released a report claiming that in the past three years, 166 people were killed by holders of concealed-weapon permits. A closer look at the evidence suggests that many of the so-called victims of gun violence were criminals. Because more than 6 million Americans hold permits, it is important to set the record straight.

As one of the most populous states with a right-to-carry law, Florida has the most concealed-handgun permits. Between Oct. 1, 1987, and May 31, the state issued them to 1.8 million individuals. So far, just 167 permits have been revoked over any type of firearms-related violation. Most of those involved trivial, nonviolent infractions. To put that figure into perspective, the annual revocation rate is a minuscule 0.00017 percent, with just three revocations since January 2008. More people are killed every year by falling vending machines than by holders of a concealed-weapon permit.

You wouldn’t know that from the rhetoric of the gun-control groups, which portray Florida as a dangerous place to live because of its laws. According to the VPC report, the Sunshine State accounted for 17 of the 96 “killer” permit holders nationwide, far more than any other state.

A recent Fox News investigation shot holes in the study. No charges were ever brought in seven of the Florida cases. One case clearly did not involve a permit holder – the person was, in fact, charged with illegally carrying a concealed handgun. Two cases that are still pending apparently involved self-defense, with one local newspaper account suggesting that the permit holder had a “strong case” to show that he had acted properly. Another case involved the accidental discharge of a firearm. The gun grabbers score all of these incidents as kills, but at least nine of them are examples of right-to-carry laws being used by permit holders to protect themselves and their families.

Three cases did result in “convictions,” but they hardly represent clear-cut examples. One involved an accidental discharge and a conviction for involuntary manslaughter. In another case, a convicted felon sparked the incident by confronting the permit holder. According to the prosecutor, the permit holder “was in some way defending himself during an escalating altercation between the men caught on the security video” and that, “People can look at that tape and interpret it two or three different ways.” His conviction rested on the question of whether he had done enough to avoid the confrontation.

The Brady Campaign and the Violence Policy Center show their desperation by twisting legitimate examples of self-defense into crimes. The simple fact is that most gun owners are law-abiding citizens. Suggesting that burglars, rapists and other hardened criminals are “victims” of permit holders is a stretch, even for these groups. The real statistics show that America is a safer place thanks to more of its citizens having a right to protect themselves and their families.