Handgun Ruling Puts Chicago’s Anti-Gun Tactics on Trial

Tuesday, 29 June 2010 | by Pat's Picks

City officials in Chicago were put on the defensive yesterday when a Supreme Court ruling on handguns basically put the city on trial for its inability to protect its own residents. The decision overturned the city’s handgun ban, finding that it is within a person’s Second Amendment right to protect themselves if they feel that the police are doing an insufficient job.

The Chicago Tribune says the Justices were swayed by news reports from April that detailed the National Guard’s deployment to protect residents in the city’s high-crime neighborhoods. The articles, which were mentioned in the Court’s decision,  compared the violence in Chicago to that of Afghanistan, and noted that minorities are disproportionally affected by gun violence and lack of protection by the police. City officials counter that putting more guns on the street will only make violence worse in Chicago’s roughest neighborhoods.