by Dave Workman
Senior Editor

A challenge to Chicago’s 1982 handgun ban has moved to the US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, with consolidation of cases filed by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), and Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA), and the National Rifle Association (NRA).

The SAF-ISRA lawsuit was filed on June 26 of last year, less than an hour after the Supreme Court handed down its historic Second Amendment ruling in District of Columbia v. Dick Anthony Heller. The separate NRA lawsuits against Chicago and neighboring Oak Park were filed the following day.

Chicago won the first round in the SAF-ISRA challenge in December when US District Judge Milton Shadur ruled for the city and rejected the lawsuits.

In his appeal brief, attorney Alan Gura, representing SAF and ISRA, is seeking incorporation of the Second Amendment, and he asserts that Chicago’s registration mandate, coupled with its prohibition on the registration of handguns, is unconstitutional. Later in the brief, Gura also notes that under a ruling handed down in 1943 in the case of Murdock v. Pennsylvania, “(a) state may not impose a charge for the enjoyment of a right granted by the Federal Constitution.” Thus, the lawsuit challenges the annual registration fees and re-registration requirement.

This requirement, he writes, “amounts to an impermissible annual tax on the exercise of a fundamental constitutional right.”

SAF founder Alan Gottlieb said Judge Shadur’s relatively quick rejection of the cases in December was actually a blessing in disguise that moved the lawsuits to the appeals court level. Had Shadur chosen otherwise, Gottlieb said the cases could have languished in his court for months.

As reported in the Jan. 15 issue of Gun Week, Shadur warned the city that its early victory might be short-lived. He left open the possibility that the appeals court might well accept arguments from gun rights groups, particularly in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Heller ruling.

Since the lawsuits were filed, the villages of Morton Grove, Evanston and Wilmette have repealed their handgun bans. Wilmette’s repeal was a sweet moment for gun rights activists who recall the December 2003 case of Hale DeMar, who shot a burglar entering his home for the second night in a row. The thief, Mario Billings, was charged, but so was DeMar, for having an unregistered handgun and an expired Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) Card.

DeMar was never prosecuted in state court, but he was fined $750 by the village of Wilmette for violating the handgun ban. Eleven days after his early release from prison for the burglary at DeMar’s home, Billings was again arrested for robbing a house in Wilmette, but it was not DeMar’s house.

Gura, who argued the Heller case before the Supreme Court in March of last year, predicted that the appeals court panel will “most likely” hear the case sometime this year, and perhaps even hand down a ruling before the year ends.

Gun rights activists can track progress of the case online at: chicagoguncase.com.