UPDATE 2:32 p.m. by Hal Dardic: State rifle association opposed to Daley ideas; originally posted by Hal Dardick at 1:15 p.m.
Flanked by several parents who had lost children to gun violence, Mayor Richard Daley today called for a host of new laws aimed at restricting gun sales and stiffening penalties for criminals who use them.
“I’m here to speak on behalf of families who lost loved ones,” Daley said, standing before a long series of tables topped with illegal weapons confiscated by Chicago police. “This is about common-sense gun laws — that we should be protected from all of these guns. . . . One murder is one too many.”
Although Daley announces new gun-control initiatives every year, this year’s announcement took on added significance because the U.S. Supreme Court is weighing whether to overturn the city’s handgun ban.
The Supreme Court in 2008 overturned a similar ban in Washington, D.C., and that led to “a dozen major lawsuits across the United States challenging common-sense gun laws,” including the Chicago handgun case, Daley said.
“We remain hopeful that when the court reaches its final decision in June, they will agree with us and with many others who share a belief in the right of municipalities and states to enact strict-but-balanced gun laws to keep their citizens safe,” he said.
“The aggressiveness of the gun advocates is just one reason it’s more important than ever that we work for common-sense gun laws focused on stopping the flow of illegal guns into our communities and keeping the guns out of the hands of the criminals,” Daley said.
But Richard Pearson, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association that is a plaintiff in the Supreme Court case, said his group opposes the measures. They would not reduce crime but would make it more burdensome and costly for law-abiding citizens to obtain firearms, he said.
“It provides a smokescreen for the mayor and many of the aldermen, so they don’t have to deal with the real problems in Chicago,” Pearson said. “They are always blaming the guns and the gun owner.”
Daley backed changes to state law that would require background checks for those buying a gun in a private sale, ban assault weapons, require that gun dealers be licensed and limit the number of handgun purchases to one per person, per month.
Those were all ideas that failed to make it through previous legislative sessions. This time, the mayor also is asking the General Assembly to make it a Class 1 felony to knowingly sell a gun to a known gang member, stiffen penalties for unlawfully using a weapon and require high-tech “micro-stamping” of guns that would allow police to determine if a particular gun fired the spent ammunition found at a crime scene.
At the federal level, Daley backed reinstating an assault-weapon ban that expired in 2004, closing a loophole that has allowed criminals to buy weapons at gun shows and repealing gun manufacturers’ immunity to some lawsuits.
“I know that many people may not appreciate these proposals, especially the gang bangers and the drug dealers and the thugs who basically terrorize our communities,” Daley said. “Taken together, I believe these initiatives will reduce gun violence, not only in Chicago, in the metropolitan area in Illinois, but in the country."
Annette Nance-Holt — whose 16-year-old son, Blair Holt, was shot and killed on a bus in 2007 — asked why lawmakers don’t do more to address gun violence.
“In a day when we are more concerned with obesity and smoking and second- hand smoke . . . why are we not more concerned with our children being murdered by handguns and assault weapons,” she said. “Why are we not outraged?”
“This is not a black issue, it’s not a Hispanic issue,” she added. “It’s an American issue. These guns are out of control, and our love of guns is out of control. Are they insane, or are we insane?”