Map Shows Several Gun Shops Within Few Miles Of Most Chicagoans
By John Dodge
CHICAGO (CBS) -- While lawyers, judges and politicians decide the future of Chicago's gun shop ban, most of the city's residents live within no more than six miles from a licensed gun dealer in the suburbs.
A map posted on Reddit, shows the location of several gun stores that ring the city and the relative distance from Chicago neighborhoods. Most of the city's residents only have a short drive to buy a gun legally over the border.
In January, a federal judge ruled that Chicago 2010 ban on licensed gun dealers within city went "too far" and was declared unconstitutional
"Chicago's ordinance goes too far in outright banning legal buyers and legal dealers from engaging in lawful acquisitions and lawful sales of firearms, and at the same time the evidence does not support that the complete ban sufficiently furthers the purposes that the ordinance tries to serve," U.S. District Judge Edmond E. Chang wrote in his decision in January.
The judge gave the city time to consider its options--whether to appeal or rewrite the current law to pass constitutional muster.
The city imposed the gun shop ban as part of a new law in 2010, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Chicago's total ban on gun possession in the city was unconstitutional.
However, the proximity of gun shops along the border would seem to make a ban on gun shops ineffective in the city.
Most of the shootings in Chicago occur with guns that were obtained illegally, officials acknowledge. Chicago police so far this year have taken more than 6,500 illegal guns off the street.
However, they say, there are too many guns already in Chicago and that banning gun shops is a safety issue.
Police Supt. Garry McCarthy has been focused on another deterrent--stiffer sentences for gun crimes.
McCarthy said police could do everything right, and violence would continue, as long as so many guns and criminals remain on the streets.
State lawmakers have resisted McCarthy's call for mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes.
Asked earlier this month if they could change proposed legislation for mandatory minimums to change concerns of gun rights activists, McCarthy said "there are adjustments that could be made if the conversations were had."
"But let me just say this. … If anybody here thinks that what we're doing has been working, then let's just keep doing it. Let's keep reading headlines about 14- and 4-year-olds getting killed," he said.
