In the McDonald decision, the United States Supreme Court struck down Chicago’s handgun ban. Within days, Mayor Daley’s City Council passed gun registration regulations subverting both the intent and the letter of the law. The Second Amendment Foundation picked-off the most obvious contravention: a gun range ban in a city that requires its citizens to qualify at a gun range to exercise their Supreme Court-affirmed right to keep and bear arms. As that lawsuit headed to its inevitable conclusion (“What are you, meshugga?), the post-Daley City Council weaseled. They loosened the ban on gun ranges just enough to avoid legal censure, but not enough so that anyone would actually open a range. Yesterday, they played Catch-22 . . .
The Chicago City Council isn’t done tinkering with gun-control measures it hastily approved last summer after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a decades-old handgun ban.
The council’s Public Safety Committee on Tuesday recommended approval of a tweak that would cut in half the licensing fee to open up a shooting range. The cost would be $2,000 for two years.
The city also would reduce the minimum distance a gun range would have to be located from homes, parks and houses of worship to 500 feet from 1,000 feet.
The changes would make it easier to put a gun range in Chicago, but another provision of the ordinance would complicate record keeping at such facilities.
It would require gun range owners keep records of everyone who used their facilities after ensuring each patron has a state firearm owner’s identification card and city firearm permit.
Did you catch that? According to the chicagotribune.com, to train at the [theoretical] Chicago gun range, you need an FOID cars AND a Chicago Firearms Permit (CFP). Now check this from the Chicago Police website:
Residents must possess the following information in order to complete the CPF application:
• A valid Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) Card issued by the State of Illinois
• Two identical passport-size photos taken in the last 30 days showing the person’s full face, head and shoulders
• A valid Driver’s License, or if the resident doesn’t possess one, a letter from a licensed optometrist or ophthalmologist attesting that the applicant meets the minimum vision requirements to obtain an Illinois driver’s license
• A signed affidavit from a firearms instructor approved in the State of Illinois stating that the applicant has completed a firearms safety and training course.
• A $100 application fee
So you can’t get a Chicago firearms permit without training and you can’t train at a [theoretical] Chicago gun range without a permit.
But wait! There’s more!
If you want to shoot your own gun (to save money, ensure safety and gain operational familiarity with your own handgun), you’ll have to register your firearm. Checking the Chicago police website we discover that firearms registration requires . . .
• A valid Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) Card issued by the State of Illinois
• Two identical passport-size photos taken in the last 30 days showing the person’s full face, head and shoulders
• A valid Driver’s License, or if the resident doesn’t possess one, a letter from a licensed optometrist or ophthalmologist attesting that the applicant meets the minimum vision requirements to obtain an Illinois driver’s license
• A signed affidavit from a firearms instructor approved in the State of Illinois stating that the applicant has completed a firearms safety and training course.
• A $100 application fee
Not to mention . . .
After obtaining a Chicago Firearms Permit, residents can purchase a firearm. Residents must then register their firearm within 5 days with the Chicago Police Department.
Only one handgun can be registered in any 30-day period. The cost is a one-time $15 fee per firearm, and the person will be required to file an annual report.
To register a firearm the owner must provide information on the type of weapon, the manufacturer, the serial number, where it was obtained or purchased and where the weapon will be located.
Are you beginning to get the idea that Chicago doesn’t want anyone to own a handgun for self-defense? The fact that there isn’t a single Google image of a single Chicago Firearms Permit tells you all you need to know on that score. Or not . . .
Can you say disenfranchisement? Imagine if African-Americans had to go through all this rigmarole and expense to vote. Clearly, Chicago’s gun control regulations were born in racism and live there to this day. Chicago’s African-American politicians, including those on the City Council, ought to be ashamed of themselves.
But they;re not. Which means that the fight against gun control is far from over. Until all Americans of all races, colors, creeds and economic circumstances can exercise their right to armed self-defense without bureaucratic blockades, the gun rights movement has its work cut out for it. And maybe even then.