Immediately after the Supreme Court’s McDonald decision—striking down the Windy City’s handgun ban—Mayor Daley’s City Council passed a passel of restrictive gun ownership regulations. Handgun hurdles include a $100 fee (every three years), $15 a gun, registration with the police and firearms training at a gun range. Only Chicago banned gun ranges within the City limits. The Second Amendment Foundation filed suit against this aspect of the regs. Rather than lose in court, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has backed down. Only not completely . . .
The proposed ordinance limits gun ranges to areas zoned for manufacturing. Outdoor ranges would be banned. Anyone opening a gun range would have to obtain a gun permit from the city and obtain approval from the Chicago Police Department for a safety plan.
The suntimes.com article also reveals that only 3500 Chicagoans have applied for permits. Which shows you the long-term effects of gun control on gun rights. (I meet people at the gun range who are shocked to discover RI’s cities and towns are now issuing concealed carry permits, in accordance with the law.)
Interestingly, back in March, the New York Times revealed that the Chicago police were having their own gun range “issues.”
The department plans to build a firing range and training ground on 33 acres off 134th Street and south of Lake Calumet, which is owned by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. In November, the district’s commissioners voted 7 to 2 to begin the process of leasing the land to the department for 39 years at $10 a year.
In a statement, the police department said it needed the range to train officers for situations like an “active shooter scenario, including but not limited to terrorist activity and other critical incidents affecting public safety.”
The land does not appear unspoiled; it is bordered by landfills and railroad tracks and overgrown with tall reeds.
But [Chicago Audubon Society President Roger] Shamley and other birdwatchers say it is a key nesting area for migratory birds. The black-crowned night heron, listed as endangered in Illinois, is known to nest nearby. The National Audubon Society includes the land and an adjacent pond and marsh in an area it has designated the Lake Calumet Important Bird Area. Chicago sits on the Mississippi Flyway, a major migratory route . . .
The proposed firing range is west of the planned Ford Calumet Environmental Center, which is intended to anchor a network of trails.
“We’re going to send thousands of families on trails to experience nature, while they will have the perceptible sound of gunfire in the background?” [water district commissioner Debra] Shore said.
There’s more than a little hypocrisy in Chicago as far as guns and ranges and anything to do with guns is concerned. For a long time, no one really cared because the suburbs (many of which are incorporated as cities) have their own ranges. Some suburban dealers have pistol ranges too. However, it is cheaper for someone who lives here to drive to Bristol WI and shoot at a very popular range there than to shoot in the IL area. Club memberships can be expensive in some suburbs, and in others, youa re restricted to shotgun ranges only.
One of the older heritage buildings in downtown Chicago (I can’t recall which one right now) has an underground range which the city wanted to close down a few years ago and permit the property owners to develop into some kind of residential space. I’ll wager that the project didn’t take off because the real estate crisis soon struck and Chicago is one of the worst affected markets in the country. Rahm Emanuel knows exactly where this range is and he could recertify it for use as a pistol range if he wanted to. Neither he nor his minions will do this anyway because they are anti gun, though, possibly, not as vehemently anti gun as his predecessor. That said, even the Illinois State Rifle Association requests people from Illinois and the rest of the country to boycott Chicago – with reason. Along with New York, this is a bastion of anti gun political groups and what happens here affects gun owners in the rest of the USA.
Chicago is a corrupt political oligopoly and has been since well before Al Capone. With Rahm the Bahm in charge, it can only get worse. He’s one of the most manipulative and deceitful politicians who ever wasted oxygen. Well, like that thief Jimmy Walker once said, the people always get what they deserve.
Yeah, they get out of Chicago to get away from the sounds of gunfire.
Shouldn’t the Chicago Audubon Society be more concerned about the impact of Interstate Highway 94 just accross the water which without noise mitigatin will likely drown out the sounds of both the gunfire and the birds?
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