Quote of the day–Ilana Rovner

Stung by the result of McDonald v. City of Chicago, 130 S. Ct. 3020 (2010), 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 live‐range instruction, and then banned all live ranges within City limits. This was not so much a nod to the importance of live‐range training as it was a thumbing of the municipal nose at the Supreme Court. The effect of the ordinance is another complete ban on gun ownership within City limits.

The ordinance admittedly was designed to make gun ownership as difficult as possible. The City has legitimate, indeed overwhelming, concerns about the prevalence of gun violence within City limits. But the Supreme Court has now spoken in Heller and McDonald on the Second Amendment right to possess a gun in the home for self-defense and the City must come to terms with that reality. Any regulation on firearms ownership must respect that right.

Ilana Rovner
July 6, 2011
Circuit Judge, United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit
RHONDA EZELL, et al., v. CITY OF CHICAGO
[The entire ruling could be summed up as telling the city and the lower court that they reversed, “You suck and we hate you.” It’s pretty brutal. As a hint, Rovner, above, was the more sympathetic of the judges. While concurring that the preliminary injunction should be issued against the city she didn’t go quite as far as Kanne and Sykes did.

It was a pleasure to read. There was agreement with so many things we have been saying for decades. That the anti-gun people have dismissed these arguments almost without discussion and to now have a court rule with us is an extreme pleasure. Most importantly they explicitly and repeatedly use the First Amendment as an analog to the Second Amendment. I will not restrain from saying, “We and many others told you so!”

See also Sebastian’s post on the topic.

As a side note which may have some relevance, while an infant Rovner and her mother immigrated to the U.S. from Latvia to escape Nazism.—Joe]

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