Morton Grove ends 27-year-old handgun ban, Chicago may also give in too

The Chicago Tribune has this story:

Morton Grove's landmark handgun ban, imposed 27 years ago, died quietly Monday night, as the suburb's Village Board bowed to a new legal reality and repealed the ordinance.

The board's 5-1 vote came in response to last month's ruling by a divided U.S. Supreme Court that struck down a similar ban. The high court ruled that the 2nd Amendment protects a person's right to own a firearm for self-defense.

Fighting in court to try to keep the law would cost money the village does not have, officials said.

"I appreciate the courage the board [showed] in 1981 in a noble experiment," Trustee Dan Staackmann said. "[But] we don't have the resources to fight this all the way."

Trustee Georgianne Brunner cast the lone vote against the repeal. "We may be acting a little bit in haste," she said. "I'm just grateful for what they did in 1981, and I wish we could just take a step back and wait it out."

Morton Grove adopted the nation's first ordinance banning the possession of handguns in 1981, triggering a storm of publicity and a nationwide debate over the merits of using local ordinances to control gun ownership. The ordinance was upheld in 1984 by the Illinois Supreme Court. . . .

Even more amazing is this story here:

Mayor Daley on Friday cracked the door open to abandoning the costly fight to uphold Chicago's 1982 handgun freeze -- if he can fashion a replacement ordinance that protects the safety of first-responders.

Until now, Daley had promised to defend Chicago's ordinance all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, despite what he called the dangerous precedent set by the court. . . .

Now that both suburbs have thrown in the towel, and newspaper editorials have urged Daley to do the same to save millions in legal costs on a fight he can't win, he appears to be having second thoughts. . . .

"We don't know yet. ... We're not gonna run away. We're gonna try to figure this out," he said.

Under further questioning, the mayor said city attorneys would simultaneously contest the law and work on a possible replacement.

Chicagoans with guns in their homes might be required to have insurance to protect taxpayers from frivolous lawsuits, he said.