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WASHINGTON (CBS2/AP) - The U.S. Supreme Court says Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense and hunting, and the ruling will likely invalidate the 26-year-old ban on handguns in the City of Chicago.
Chicago's Mayor Richard M. Daley calls the ruling "a very frightening decision."
In fact, the Illinois State Rifle Association has already filed a lawsuit challenging the Chicago ban. They filed the suit within 15 minutes of the high court's ruling.
The 5-4 ruling specifically struck down a ban on handguns in Washington, D.C. The court ruled that the District of Columbia's 32-year-old ban on handguns is incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment. The decision goes further than even the Bush administration wanted, and leaves most gun laws intact, but could invalidate Chicago's.
The Supreme Court ruling does not automatically invalidate the Chicago handgun ban, but opens up the possibility of a court challenge that could get it declared unconstitutional.
The Illinois State Rifle Association filed a lawsuit with just that purpose in mind at 9:15 a.m.
The National Rifle Association also plans to file lawsuits in Chicago and several suburbs, as well as San Francisco, challenging handgun restrictions there based on Thursday's outcome.
There has been a ban on the sale and registration of handguns has been in place since 1982. Only police officers, aldermen and a handful of others are exempt from the ban. While other firearms can be registered, under current law, handguns cannot be registered and are considered illegal. Several suburbs have similar restrictions.
Mayor Richard M. Daley is a staunch supporter of gun control, and said he does not know if the Supreme Court decision striking down Washington's handgun ban will affect the Chicago ban.
But the mayor called the ruling "a very frightening decision."
Speaking during a morning event at Navy Pier, Daley said any effort to strike down Chicago's handgun ban would likely increase taxes because of the increased need for police presence. He also says violence sparked by the end of the ban would also increase hospitalizations.
"It is frightening that America loves guns," the mayor said, "and to me, I think this decision really places those who are rich and those are in power, they'll always feel safe. Those who do not have the power do not feel safe, and that's what they're saying. If you're elected officials, you feel safe. You cannot carry a gun into a federal building. You cannot carry a gun into a federal court. So they're setting themselves aside, and really, they're saying to the rest of America that the answer to all the constitutional issues is that we can carry guns. And I just don't understand how they came to this thinking."
The court had not conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment since its ratification in 1791. The amendment reads: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
The basic issue for the justices was whether the amendment protects an individual's right to own guns no matter what, or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia.
Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for four colleagues, said the Constitution does not permit "the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home."
In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority "would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons."
He said such evidence "is nowhere to be found."
Gun rights supporters hailed the decision. "I consider this the opening salvo in a step-by-step process of providing relief for law-abiding Americans everywhere that have been deprived of this freedom," said Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a leading gun control advocate in Congress, criticized the ruling. "I believe the people of this great country will be less safe because of it," she said.
With an epidemic of gun violence in Chicago this year, Daley and other officials and activists have been lobbying for stricter state gun laws.
But some defenders of gun rights say just the opposite of Mayor Daley, arguing instead in favor of the theories of economist John Lott, now of the University of Maryland.
The onetime University of Chicago professor argued in his 1998 volume, More Guns, Less Crime, for a statistical correlation between laws allowing people to carry concealed handguns and a drop in crime rates. Lott theorized the crime rate dropped because criminals were deterred by the possibility of confronting an armed victim.
Lott also claimed the Chicago gun ban was to blame for an increase in crime.
Critics of Chicago's gun ordinance also say the law already aims to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, and that law-abiding citizens should be allowed to possess any firearm they desire.
The Washington, D.C., gun ban was taken to the Supreme Court by way of the case of Dick Anthony Heller, 65, an armed security guard. He sued the District of Columbia after it rejected his application to keep a handgun at his home for protection. His lawyers say the amendment plainly protects an individual's right.
North suburban Morton Grove was the first municipality in the country to enact a handgun ban, in 1981, according to the Encyclopedia of Chicago. The ban survived a court challenge, and the Chicago ordinance proposed by Ald. Edward Burke (14th) passed the following year, in the wake of assassination attempts on President Reagan and Pope John Paul II.
Evanston passed a handgun ban later in 1982, and Oak Park in 1984, among other municipalities.
Before Thursday, the last Supreme Court ruling on the topic came in 1939 in U.S. v. Miller, which involved a sawed-off shotgun. Constitutional scholars disagree over what that case means but agree it did not squarely answer the question of individual versus collective rights.
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