chicago wants to video tape gun sales

[Dustbuster]

Chicago could require gun dealers to videotape sales and ban gun stores near schools and parks under Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s latest attempt to heavily regulate firearms sales following a federal court ruling that tossed out the city’s outright ban on gun sales.

The plan, to be introduced at Wednesday’s City Council meeting, would require gun dealers to videotape sales “to discourage traffickers and buyers who use false identification,” according to a report from the city detailing the specifics of the ordinance.

In addition, the proposal would require a 72-hour waiting period for purchasing handguns and 24 hours for rifles and shotguns. A dealer would be able to sell only one handgun per month per buyer, and the store records would be subject to quarterly audits to discourage trafficking.

Gun retailers will require special use permits, would only be allowed in areas with a few commercial zoning designations and they would not be allowed within 500 feet of a school or park, according to Janey Rountree, Emanuel’s deputy chief of staff for public safety. Because of those tight rules, gun stores would only be eligible to set up in spots that comprise about 0.5 percent of Chicago’s geographic area, she said.

Another provision is aimed at preventing a gun store that loses its business license for failing to follow the law from immediately reopening in the same location.

Still, it's unclear how much such rules would curb Chicago's gun violence. Police say they pull about 7,000 guns off the city’s streets each year, with many of the weapons used in crimes finding their way into Chicago from stores in the suburbs, in Indiana or in southern states. Chicago also banned handgun ownership for decades and the gun violence continued.

For Emanuel, it’s important to be viewed as taking the issue seriously. Some South and West Side neighborhoods continue to be wracked by gun violence. Emanuel’s support among African-American voters has fallen since his 2011 election.

On Tuesday, Emanuel told a downtown hotel ballroom full of police officers that the new rules are “a smart, tough and enforceable way to prevent illegal guns in the city of Chicago.”

“Now that we’re required to allow gun sales within the city limits, we do it in a way that does not undermine our public safety goals,” said Emanuel, speaking at the police department’s annual awards ceremony.

In January, U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang ruled that it was unconstitutional for the city to ban gun sales. Chang said the city failed to convince him that banning the sale of guns by licensed dealers was necessary to reduce gun violence. Chang gave the mayor six months to come up with new rules, with gun rights advocates expressing skepticism that whatever regulations the mayor designed would go far enough to allow sales in the city.

If recent history is any guide, gun backers will challenge him in court. That's what unfolded after the Emanuel administration put together a new set of rules to allow gun ranges in Chicago after a federal judge's 2011 ruling that overturned the city's ban.

Those rules allowed firing ranges only in industrial areas at least 1,000 feet away from a school, a church, a playground or a day care center. The regulations also included noise restrictions. Gun rights advocates said the standards were designed to discourage firing range owners from locating in the city. The City Council loosened the rules, but opponents said they're still unduly onerous. The case remains in court.

Rountree said the city Law Department is confident the newest proposal would withstand a legal challenge if one is forthcoming.

Todd Vandermyde, Illinois lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, declined comment Tuesday on the mayor’s gun store ordinance because he hadn’t yet seen the specifics.

jebyrne@tribune.com

bruthhart@tribune.com

 

[Grand Torino]

Most gun stores already have video cameras in place. Hell anymore, most stores in general have video surveillance! 

[Ugly]

Slime ball tactics, pure and simple.

[bersaguy]

Most gun stores already have video cameras in place. Hell anymore, most stores in general have video surveillance! 

First you have to consider the source the rules are coming from GT. He is not smart enough to realize that and all he is trying to do is anything he can to be in control and he will never been in control. The street gangsters of Chicago are in control. Always have been since  the days of Mayor Richard M. Daley and will be after Emanuel is long gone. He has already lost most of the black vote in the city.  Until he arms the Law biding Citizens of Chicago the murder rate will continue to climb.........jmho

[Ted S.]

I thought that was the NSAs job?

[tnhawk]

There is no reason that I will ever enter chicago.

[Guest theconstitutionrocks]

We are dealing with one of two issues here. Either:

 

A-The people who are trying to make/pass these laws are totally clueless to the real problem (the gang/criminal element mindset/action)

 

or 

 

B-They are deliberately using this to go after the weapons rather than the perps.

 

The effort is so transparent and so mis-guided that anyone with a lick of sense can see what is going on. Now, I will concede that trying to get the gang genie back in the bottle is a monumental effort and short of putting armed troops on the streets (which nobody should truely want) you are going to have a difficult time reigning these groups in. The attempt to go after the weapons however is NOT the way to do it...they will get them elsewhere. You have to go after the drug supply lines, the organizations (use RICO), and possibly (within the limits of constitutional protections) redefine the terms of domestic terrorism and use those provisions to crush these organizations.

[bersaguy]

Gangs have been an issue in Chicago long before I moved away from up there in 1967. Back then it was knives and ball bats and a meeting in the park to discuss turf boundaries and if it went to the next level and knives and ball bats where needed the only ones that got hurt was gang members. Today's gangs are not really gangs. They are hoodlums and have no respect for turfs or innocent people not involved. They just open fire and who ever gets hit gets hit. If the Mayor of Chicago really wanted to end the violence in his city he would go out of his way to arm  the good upstanding people in his city and allow them to take care of it along with the police but when you have an undermanned Police force which probably half their own kids are these hoodlums doing the killings your never going to win. I have friends that I have known my whole life that still live up there and we talk often. A few of the gangs on the south side decided to expand their turf to Will county out side of the protection of the Chicago PD. Bad idea. When they moved in Lockport Illinois a bunch of them ended up dead and a dump truck took their remains back up to the South side of Chicago in Blue Island and dumped them in an alley on their old turf. All where killed with Joe Biden's favor weapon and no one laid claim to it but it let the gangs in Chicago know to stay out of Will county. The Chicago Sun Times Newspaper called it a gang related incident and it was 1 paragraph on about page 14 right next to KFC advertisement and coupons. !7 kids between ages 13 and 17 died that night and it made 1 paragraph on page 14. That is how the News Medias now consider killing in Chicago. There was also a fire that night in Lockport and an old vacant house burned to the ground and even though FD responded they just let it burn down. That was what was going to be the gangs new clubhouse and rumor has it that was were all these kids met their Waterloo but the fire covered up any evidence to prove it. I might call it Vigilante justice or maybe just clearing out some trash but it got the point across  to stay in Chicago..........I will see if I can get one of my buddy's to send me a news clip of it. Happened about a year ago....................... :up: