Gun Control In Chicago Essay

Chicago should be an example to those on both sides of the gun argument. The city is living proof that strict gun regulations alone will not cause gun violence to go down. Unfortunately for gun control advocates, the ban on handgun ownership in Chicago was struck down in a landmark case known as McDonald v. City of Chicago.
Two years ago, in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. ___, this Court held that the Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense and struck down a District of Columbia law that banned the possession of handguns in the home. Chicago (hereinafter City) and the village of Oak Park, a Chicago suburb, have laws effectively banning handgun possession by almost all private citizens.

Spitzer, author of “The Politics of Gun Control,” “The first congressional action pertaining to guns was the enactment of a 10 percent federal excise tax, passed as part of the War Revenue Act in 1919. It was more significant as a revenue-raising measure than as a tool of regulation, and it survived the 1920s despite several efforts to reduce the tax.” The attempt of gun regulation was just beginning in the early 1900s. Although this particular act did not necessarily stifle gun rights, it opened the door for more legislation on gun control.
According to Spitzer,
In 1927, responding to popular fears of handgun use by criminals, Congress passed a bill to prohibit the sale of handguns to private individuals through the mail. This measure passed when other gun control efforts failed because its supporters justified it as a measure that supported, rather than eroded, state sovereignty. That is, proponents argued that such a federally imposed ban would prevent the US Post Office from unintentionally aiding in breaking the laws of states with tougher gun regulations. The significance of this argument lay in the prevailing reluctance to extend federal power over the states in the period preceding Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. The Post Office was an enthusiastic supporter of the bill, but it found little support from President Coolidge or others in the executive