City of Chicago Ban on Gun Sales Declared Unconstitutional by U.S. District Judge Edmond E. Chang

U.S. District Judge Edmond E. Chang has struck down Chicago’s law prohibiting the sale of guns within the city limits and declared in unconstitutional. In his ruling Judge Change said, “the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment must also include the right to acquire a firearm.”

Chicago law prohibiting the sale of guns within the third-most populous U.S. city was struck down as unconstitutional by a federal judge.

“Chicago’s ordinance goes too far in outright banning legal buyers and legal dealers from engaging in lawful acquisitions and lawful sales of firearms,” U.S. District Judge Edmond E. Chang wrote in a decision today.

The judge said he was delaying the effect of his ruling to allow the city time to seek a stay during an appeal or, if it elects to forgo an appeal, to consider and enact sales restrictions “short of a complete ban.”

Chicago Sun Times: Federal judge rules city ban on handgun sales unconstitutional.

City Hall attorneys had argued that the gun sale ban makes it harder for criminals to get their hands on weapons.

Chang agreed the city had a “fundamental duty” to protect its citizens and acknowledged that “the stark reality facing the City each year is thousands of shooting victims and hundreds of murders committed with a gun.”

But he wrote that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms for self-defense “must also include the right to acquire a firearm.”

“If all cities and municipalities can prohibit gun sales and transfers within their own borders, then all gun sales and transfers may be banned across a wide swath of the country if this principle is carried forward to its natural conclusion,” he added.