by Dave Workman | Senior Editor
A court meeting was to have occurred Sept. 28 in the ongoing lawsuit challenging the City of Chicago’s ban on gun sales after a federal judge denied the city’s motion for summary judgment and refused to dismiss the case, which is backed by the Second Amendment Foundation.
US District Court Judge Robert M. Dow, Jr. set the date to discuss damages for the plaintiff in this case, which is known as Second Amendment Arms v. City of Chicago.
Second Amendment Arms is not connected to SAF. It is owned by R. Joseph Franzese. He submitted an application for a business license in early July 2010. The city contends that the application was for an address in an area not zoned for commercial use, but Franzese argues that he was not advised about the zoning and that the location had been advertised as commercial property. Besides, he contended that the city’s prohibition on gun sales “would have blocked (their) efforts no matter where (they) chose.”
This is the latest in a string of court battles between Chicago and SAF, causing SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb to observe, “We’ve already beat Chicago three times, in the McDonald case before the Supreme Court, and both Ezell 1 and Ezell 2 before the federal court of appeals. I’m reminded of the folk song by Peter, Paul and Mary that asked, ‘When will they ever learn’?”
SAF has been spearheading legal action not only against Chicago, but filed a case that was instrumental in forcing the state legislature in Springfield to adopt a concealed carry statute four years ago. That required a legislative override of then-Gov. Pat Quinn’s veto of the concealed carry bill.
Since then, Chicago has been the center of resistance.
“The City of Chicago under Rahm Emanuel is trying to be too clever by half,” Gottlieb said. “We would have thought by now that they would have ceased this pattern of spending tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars on stubborn litigation, but the city seems determined to be dragged kicking and screaming into compliance with the Second Amendment.”
Following the 2010 McDonald ruling by the Supreme Court that nullified Chicago’s decades-old handgun ban and incorporated the Second Amendment to the states via the 14th Amendment, the city rammed through hastily-crafted gun control ordinances that SAF characterized as attempts to “dance around” the spirit and intent of the McDonald high court ruling.
“Since losing its gun ban fight in the Supreme Court’s 2010 McDonald ruling,” Gottlieb stated, “Chicago has been digging its heels in deeper and deeper, throwing every kind of legal roadblock it could in an effort to delay what seems inevitable. The city has got to follow the law and the constitution, and as long as they keep fighting, we’ll keep suing.
“That’s what winning firearms freedom one lawsuit at a time is all about,” he said.
