Ezell v. Chicago – LonelyMachines

Ezell v. Chicago: Full of Win

Does the right to keep and bear arms include the right to fire them? According to today’s 7th Circuit opinion [pdf], it does.

In order to keep a functional firearm in the home, Chicago residents must acquire a permit. Part of getting the permit involves proving proficiency through a live-fire course at a range. However, the city has an ordinance that prohibits anyone from opening a range in which the average person can do so. Read that again. Yep.

The 2nd Amendment Foundation sought an injunction against enforcement of the ordinance last year, but Judge Kendall upheld its constitutionality in District Court. The case moved to the 7th Circuit in April, and they were not pleased with the city.

Stung by the result of McDonald v. City of Chicago, the City quickly enacted an ordinance that was too clever by half. Recognizing that a complete gun ban would no longer survive Supreme Court review, the City required all gun owners to obtain training that included one hour of liveâ€range instruction, and then banned all live ranges within City limits.

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Civil Rights

Ezell v. Chicago Orals

In a way, this case is a rematch. In one corner, we have Alan Gura, who represented us admirably in McDonald v. Chicago. In the other corner, we have Chicago counsel James Feldman, who utterly crashed and burned in his attempts to argue the city’s claims in that case. Apparently, Feldman isn’t willing to settle for one failure in front of the nation’s highest court, so he’s repeating it here.

The case at hand is Ezell v. Chicago, a challenge to Chicago’s ban on the construction of indoor shooting ranges within the city limits. The ban presents something of a Catch-22, due to the Responsible Gun Ownership Ordinance (also known as the “We’re Cooperating As Little As Humanly Possible With The Damn Court” ordinance). The Ordinance requires that registration of a handgun include

an affidavit signed by a firearm instructor certified by the State of Illinois to provide firearm training courses attesting that the applicant has completed a firearm safety and training course, which, at a minimum, provides one hour of range training

That’s a hard thing to do when there are no firing ranges around.

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