After the Supreme Court's ruling that expanded gun rights, striking down Chicago's gun ban, it's pretty clear that nothing involving gun regulation at the state level is settled. In fact, it's decidedly unsettled. The Court's decision was vaguely worded so what exactly constitutes too much regulation is unclear. Gun-rights groups are already preparing to file suit in states with restrictive laws.
But the situation is especially dire in Chicago, which had enacted the ban because it has a much higher homicide rate than the country's other two largest cities, New York and Los Angeles, and because most of the murders are gun related. The WSJ has a story today about how Chicago leaders are looking at other ways to regulate guns in light of the law.
In addition to strict regulations of gun ownership, Chicago has tried to focus new programs to help young men who might be potential victims of violence. In the wake of the decision, the city's leaders are considering other measures like "tracking gun offenders like sex offenders; limiting residents to ownership of a single gun; and banning stores that sell handguns within city limits," according to the WSJ. The city had 50 murders shootings on a recent weekend, and its leaders are criticizing the justices as detached from reality. They have a point. Victims of gun violence are most likely to be young, poor, and black, which, for the most part, doesn't describe the makeup of gun-rights advocates or the politicians who fail to pass gun-control laws. Those closest to the violence are left to scramble when the national gun-rights narrative fails to take into account the people guns hurt the most.
-- Monica Potts
