Federal judge strikes down Chicago’s ban on handgun sales

First of all, the Judge was an Obama appointee. So that alone is shocking.

More from Hot Air:

Courts have been slapping Chicago around on guns for years now. In 2010, after issuing the landmark Heller decision finding an individual right to bear arms in the Second Amendment, the Supreme Court followed up by striking down Chicago’s gun ban. The issue in that case was whether the right to bear arms was so fundamental that it should also shield citizens from state bans just as it shielded Heller from a ban in the federal District of Columbia. Answer: Yep. So Chicago went back to the drawing board, redrafting its ordinance to allow lawful possession of guns inside the home but banning gun sales inside the city. Was that enough to evade Heller?

Nope:

U.S. District Court Judge Edmond E. Chang wrote in a 35-page opinion that “Chicago’s ordinance goes too far in outright banning legal buyers and legal dealers from engaging in lawful acquisitions and lawful sales of firearms . . .”
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City of Chicago attorneys argued that it needed to ban the sale of handguns within the city because it wanted to restrict criminals’ access to licensed dealers; restrict gun acquisition in the illegal market; and eliminate gun shops, which are dangerous in themselves and cannot be properly regulated.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit — a combination of Chicago residents and an association of Illinois firearms retailers — argued that if they have the right to have a handgun within city limits — as courts have ruled — then they have a right to buy one within the city.

That argument carried the day with the judge.

Charles C.W. Cooke from National Review writes more on the topic.

The ban covers federally licensed firearms dealers; even validly licensed dealers cannot sell firearms in Chicago. The ban covers gifts amongst family members; only through inheritance can someone transfer a firearm to a family member. Chicago does all this in the name of reducing gun violence. That is one of the fundamental duties of government: to protect its citizens. The stark reality facing the City each year is thousands of shooting victims and hundreds of murders committed with a gun. But on the other side of this case is another feature of government: certain fundamental rights are protected by the Constitution, put outside government’s reach, including the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense under the Second Amendment. This right must also include the right to acquire a firearm,although that acquisition right is far from absolute: there are many long-standing restrictions on who may acquire firearms (for examples, felons and the mentally ill have long been banned) and there are many restrictions on the sales of arms (for example, licensing requirements for commercial sales). But Chicago’s ordinance goes too far in outright banning legal buyers and legal dealers from engaging in lawful acquisitions and lawful sales of firearms, and at the same time the evidence does not support that the complete ban sufficiently furthers the purposes that the ordinance tries to serve. For the specific reasons explained later in this opinion, the ordinances are declared unconstitutional.

Wow, just wow.