Gun Rights

In this case, Otis McDonald and the other Petitioners seek the right to possess handguns within their homes for the purpose of self-defense. They need handguns.  In the 25 full years since Chicago passed its handgun ban, handgun murder rates have soared, as have murders by young people in the city. Chicago schools have launched a $30 million social program to deter violence by public school students, but this program has literally just begun. ...

In the meantime, Petitioners have no right to possess handguns to defend themselves, and police have no legal or constitutional duty to rescue citizens from violence.  The Chicago handgun ban has been completely ineffective in reducing handgun murders. Therefore, it does not advance the public interest, and it ought to be found unconstitutional by this Court. 

The founder of modern criminology, Cesare Beccaria, knew two centuries ago what Chicago is only now finding out: that gun bans cause murders:

False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm those only who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. 

To read the full amicus brief for the Supreme Court, prepared by Heartland Senior Fellow for Legal Affairs, Maureen Martin, downlownload this PDF.