by Dave Workman
Senior Editor

Within an hour of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Second Amendment, attorneys representing the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and the Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA), and four Chicago residents, filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Chicago, IL, to overturn that city’s decades-old handgun ban.

One day later, the National Rifle Association (NRA) and four other citizens also filed suit against the city’s decades-old handgun ban. The NRA’s action is broader, however, in that the organization and four individual citizens in Chicago also seek to overturn long-standing bans in neighboring Morton Grove, Oak Park and Evanston.

The Heller ruling on the District of Columbia’s handgun ban, which left anti-gun Chicago Mayor Richard Daley furious, had been expected to spawn similar lawsuits in cities including Chicago, New York and San Francisco (see related story) but the swiftness of the filing surprised some people. Chicago-area attorney David Sigale, who is working with lead attorney Alan Gura—the man who successfully argued the Heller case before the high court—filed the papers within about 15 minutes of hearing the Heller case outcome.

“Our goal,” Gura said “is to require state and local officials to respect our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Chicago’s handgun ban, as well as some of its gun registration requirements, are clearly unconstitutional.”

Alan Gottlieb, founder of the SAF, noted in a prepared statement that “Chicago’s handgun ban has failed to stop violent crime. It’s time to give the Constitution a chance.”

ISRA Executive Director Richard Pearson added, “Chicago’s registration scheme cries out for common-sense reform.”

Curiously, Illinois’ Sen. Barack Obama, waiting to officially secure his party’s nomination for president at its convention in Denver, CO, offered a tepid reaction to the ruling, insisting that he supports the individual right to keep and bear arms, but adding that the decision still allows for local control measures.

But a furious Daley called the ruling “very frightening” during a press conference at Chicago’s Navy Pier.

Quoted by The Chicago Sun-Times, Daley told reporters, “Does this lead to everyone having a gun in our society? If they think that’s the answer, then they’re greatly mistaken. Then, why don’t we do away with the court system and go back to the Old West? You have a gun and I have a gun and we’ll settle in the streets.”

Individual plaintiffs in the lawsuit are retiree Otis McDonald, former police officer Adam Orlov and David and Colleen Lawson.

McDonald is a retired maintenance engineer who worked at the University of Chicago and has been a Chicago resident since 1952. In the 1960s, this Army veteran, who served in Germany and came home to raise a family in Chicago, was a pioneer in integrating his local union, rising through the ranks until he became head of that local.

In addition to being a civil rights and union leader in the Chicago area, McDonald is also a community activist who has been threatened for his efforts to rid his neighborhood of drug dealers and other criminals. He owns a handgun, but cannot keep it inside the city because of the handgun ban.

“This lawsuit, I hope, will allow me to bring my handgun into the city legally,” he said in an interview with Gun Week. “I only want a handgun in my house for my protection.”

A former Evanston, IL, police officer, Orlov left law enforcement to attend business school. He now runs a Chicago trading company, dealing in stocks and other securities.

Orlov told Gun Week that he believes the Chicago handgun ban violates his constitutional right to have a handgun for his personal protection at home. He called the Chicago handgun ban “onerous.”

The Lawsons have been near-victims of a home-invasion in which Colleen, alerted by a neighbor, was able to confront a trio of thugs as they tried to pry open the back door of the couple’s Chicago home during an attempted afternoon home invasion. David was out of town at the time on a job. He is a software engineer, while she is a hypnotherapist.

Perhaps as alarming as the attempted break-in was the response from police. It took them more than a half-hour to respond to a life-threatening situation, and when they arrived, according to Colleen, “they basically just said there was nothing they could do.”

Attorney Sigale observed, “The right to defend our homes and families against those who would do them harm, whether a random criminal, violent ex-domestic partner, or other wrongdoer, is one of the principles upon which America was founded. It is time the city of Chicago trust its honest, law-abiding residents with this constitutional right.”

Details on the SAF lawsuit can be found online at “chicagoguncase.com.”

In the NRA lawsuit, individual plaintiffs are Dr. Kathryn Tyler, Anthony Burton, Van F. Welton and Brett Benson.