CBS Chicago reports:
Gun rights proponents have wasted no time in filing a federal lawsuit to nullify the new ordinance passed by the City Council to replace the 28-year-old ban on handguns.
The Illinois Association of Firearms Retailers and four Chicago residents filed the lawsuit Tuesday in U.S. District Court against the city and Mayor Richard M. Daley.
The plaintiffs include Brett Benson, 37, a trader on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange who owns a farm in central Illinois; Raymond Sledge, 53, a public elementary school teaching assistant who owns his own home but lives with his mother, who lives near a high-crime area on the South Side, in order to take care of her; and a Chicago couple -- Kenneth Pacholski and Kathryn Tyler -- he works in aircraft restoration, she is a veterinarian. All the plaintiffs own multiple guns but keep them outside the city limits, the suit says.
The lawsuit says Sledge wants to be able to carry his handgun outside his home in order to defend himself, but he is prevented from doing so by the city's one gun ordinance.
Here's
more from WLS:
Also among the plaintiffs is the Illinois Association of Firearms Retailers, which counts among its members people who would like to sell firearms and open shooting ranges within the city, but are barred from doing so by the city's newest gun ordinances.The suit claims that the city's new ordinances "infringes upon, and imposes an impermissible burden upon, the plaintiffs' right to keep and bear arms." The suit also claims that a provision that limits gun possession to those between 18 and 20 years old only if they have the written consent of a parent or guardian who is not prohibited from having a state Firearm Owner's Identification Card, violates the rights of those under 21 to keep and bear arms.
The plaintiffs want the court to rule that the city's ordinance are null and void because it infringes upon the right to keep and bear arms. It also seeks additionals damages and court costs.
Mayor Daley can now ring up a big legal bill with someone else's money.
