SAF wins big over Chicago, appeals in another IL case

The Bellevue-based Second Amendment Foundation on Monday was a pretty happy camp, despite last Friday’s “first-round” loss in an Illinois court case that – if it advances all the way to the Supreme Court – could put an end to judicial semantics games over the right to keep and bear arms.

That ruling is being appealed, and one might almost be compelled to thank the City of Chicago for paying its court-mandated legal reimbursement to SAF for the landmark Supreme Court case of McDonald v. City of Chicago. And the amount of that bill? How does $399,950 sound?

“That is the single largest check that has ever come to SAF in the history of the foundation,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb.

Chicago’s legal liability might be partly due to the city’s pattern of, as Gottlieb put it, “jacking SAF around” to run up its legal bills, perhaps to discourage the group from pursuing its litigation. The city is doing it again in another SAF-funded case, Ezell v. City of Chicago, related to the city’s ban on gun ranges inside city limits, despite a city requirement that people applying for Chicago gun permits must take a training course that includes live-firing at a gun range.

Chicago’s legal strategy appears to include financially draining those who sue, with an endless stream of required depositions and other maneuvers. Perhaps the city has millions of dollars it can devote to paying legal bills when it loses. See, the more you make the other side pay in attorney's fees, the more you could wind up reimbursing when you lose in court. But of course in this instance, it's just taxpayer's money, so who really cares, right?

Money from the McDonald victory will go right back into current litigation, which brings us around to Friday’s setback in the case of Moore v. Madigan, challenging the constitutionality of Illinois state laws that prohibit the carrying of loaded firearms for personal protection.

The federal judge in that case, Sue E. Myerscough, dismissed the complaint last Friday, noting in her 48-page ruling that:

This Court finds that the Illinois “Unlawful Use of Weapons” and “Aggravated Unlawful Use of a Weapon” statutes do not violate Plaintiffs’ Second Amendment rights. The United States Supreme Court and the Seventh Circuit have recognized only a Second Amendment core individual right to bear arms inside the home. Further, even if this Court recognized a Second Amendment right to bear arms outside of the home and an interference with that right, the statutes nonetheless survive constitutional scrutiny.

SAF has already appealed.

Judge Myerscough is an Obama administration appointee who previously served on the Illinois Fourth District Appellate Court, according to a biography on Wikipedia. Her reasoning provides a text book example about the importance of electing people who nominate the right judges. In this case, we are discussing the president, who nominates federal judges, and members of the Senate, who confirm or reject those nominations.

Arizona attorney Sandy Froman, a former president of the National Rifle Association, told this column in an exclusive interview Monday that she has spent years explaining to firearms owners and others the importance of elections, particularly those for president and the Senate.

“When I go around and talk about elections, I always tell people that elections matter, but not always for the reasons you might think. The presidency and the senate are very important because what they do can last long beyond their terms…those judges serve for life, and their decisions have precedential value that carries well beyond their lifetimes.”—Sandra Froman, attorney and former NRA president

When a federal judge – in this case Myerscough – can issue an opinion that a civil right is limited to the confines of one’s residence, that is a red flag warning to anyone who sits back and relaxes while others go to the polls. Quite a few gun owners at one time proudly noted that they voted for Obama. Now, they are not so vocal. But Obama appointed Myerscough, and here’s what she thinks of the Second Amendment:

This Court finds further support for its conclusion in recent decisions of the Illinois Appellate Court, which has also concluded that Heller and McDonald affirm a Second Amendment right to bear arms in the home but not outside of the home…

…Alternatively, assuming, arguendo, that there is a right to bear arms outside of the home, such a right is not a core Second Amendment right as defined by the Heller Court, which defined the core of the right as the right to bear arms in the home for self-defense.

It can be reasonably argued that a right that is limited to its exercise within the confines of one’s home is not a right at all, and to suggest so is to defy common sense.

Do we confine the right of free speech to the home? The mere exchange of opinion would thus be rendered impossible, for the people exchange opinions in public forum every day.

Likewise, do we render the right against self-incrimination applicable only within the confines of one’s residence? If we were to apply the “inside-the-home” standard to the Fourth and Fifth amendments, then it would be permissible, if not routine, for suspects to be taken to police stations where they could be interrogated without counsel until they confessed, and then they could be forced in the courtroom to admit to all manner of criminal activity, whether guilty or not.

Would the American press be able to function if reporting and editorializing were not permitted outside the front door of the journalist’s home?

No other civil right is treated so contemptibly as is the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. SAF’s Gottlieb has vowed to fight this case all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.

“We look forward to winning this important case on appeal even if it means going back to the United States Supreme Court for a third time. The Second Amendment does not say, the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed except outside your home or that it only applies inside your house. We don’t check our constitutional rights at the front door.”—Alan Gottlieb, Second Amendment Foundation

First Amendment advocates are currently defending the Seattle Library’s decision to allow people to visit pornography sites on library computers, even though others find this offensive. Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat wrote about the controversy here, and actually quoted this writer.

If it is acceptable for people to view pornography on publicly-owned computers in a public library, than there should be no disdain about a citizen’s right to peaceably carry a firearm for personal protection in a public place, even that same public library.

To advocate less smells of hypocrisy, and to believe that the exercise of a constitutionally-protected civil right ends at one’s doorstep is a monument to the social bigotry that is routinely practiced against the Second Amendment.

Froman said something else that gun owners should ponder over the next several months, leading up to the November election. George Bush appointed both John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. Had they not been there, both the Heller and McDonald rulings could have, and possibly would have, gone the other way. And she added this:

"""""'Some of the commentators are already noting that if Obama is elected for a second term, he could have perhaps three and maybe four more appointments to the Supreme Court, and that scares me." ""

Indeed.

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